person:alessandra rotundi

GIADA investigates #comet’s “fluffy” dust grains
▻http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2015/04/09/giada-investigates-comets-fluffy-dust-grains

In a recent paper published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, the GIADA team present their findings on the properties of dust particles from Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. This blog post has been prepared with inputs from lead author Marco Fulle, and GIADA principal investigator Alessandra Rotundi. GIADA, the Grain Impact Analyser and Dust Accumulator, is designed to capture dust particles in the coma of Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko as #Rosetta flies around it. The characteristic properties of the dust grains can be used to infer the history of the material being ejected from comet. The latest study focuses on the dust particles collected between 1 August 2014 and 14 January 2015. The GIADA team find that the dust particles impacting on their detectors can be separated into two (...)

#Science #rosetta #science

GIADA’s dust measurements : 3.7-3.4 AU
▻http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2015/01/22/giadas-dust-measurements-3-7-3-4-au

Based on inputs from GIADA team members Alessandra Rotundi (instrument PI) and Marco Fulle, following the publication of “Dust Measurements in the Coma of #Comet_67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko Inbound to the Sun Between 3.7 and 3.4 AU” in the journal #Science today. GIADA is #Rosetta’s Grain Impact Analyzer and Dust Accumulator. Our published research so far focuses on two aspects of the dust around Comet 67P/C-G: the different populations of dust grain found either in bound orbits or out-flowing from the nucleus, and the dust-to-gas ratio in the coma. First let’s discuss the grain population, considering measurements made with both GIADA and OSIRIS on 4 August 2014, when we were still at 275 km from the comet. These observations allowed us to count about 350 grains in bound orbits around the (...)

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