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Rosetta Publications
For all publications related to the Rosetta mission, please include the following acknowledgement:
Rosetta is an ESA mission with contributions from its Member States and NASA. Rosetta's Philae lander is provided by a consortium led by DLR, MPS, CNES and ASI.
For papers using Rosetta mission archive data provided by the PSA (https://archives.esac.esa.int/psa/) or PDS (https://pds.nasa.gov) please acknowledge the Principal Investigator(s) as well as the ESA Planetary Science Archive and NASA PDS Planetary Data System.
To refer to this page you can use the following url: https://sci.esa.int/rosetta-publications.
A list of Rosetta publications is available here: ADS Library, but as the Rosetta mission is in its Legacy phase, the list is not routinely updated.
Research articles and reports from the Science journal special issue, Catching a comet, in which the first results from the Rosetta orbiter instruments are reported are available (free access) here.
Research articles and reports from the Science journal special issue on Philae's first look are available (free access) here.
A special issue of Astronomy & Astrophysics on Rosetta mission results pre-perihelion was published in November 2015. It is available here.
A special issue of Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society resulting from The ESLAB 50 Symposium - spacecraft at comets from 1P/Halley to 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko was compiled in Autumn 2016. It is available here.
A second special issue of Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society resulting from the conference Comets: A new vision after Rosetta and Philae was compiled in Spring/Summer 2017. It is available here.
A second special issue of Astronomy & Astrophysics on Rosetta mission full comet phase results was published in September 2019. It is available here.
A list of Rosetta-related theses which have been prepared can be found here.
Publication archive
Publication archive
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Contents:
Media services
Mission facts
Highlights
Selecting a landing site
Landing on a comet
Comets – an introduction
Rosetta's comet
Missions to comets
Appendix A: Provisional programme for press event at ESOC
Appendix B: Selected images and videos
Appendix C: Distances, dates, times for mission
Appendix D: Timeline for separation
Errata
pg 48: a minus sign is missing from the temperature quoted. The text should read: "The average surface temperature, reported by the VIRTIS team, is -70 °C (205 K)"Press kit updated in October for Go for landing on the primary landing site.
Contents:
Media services
Quick reference mission facts
Highlights from the Rosetta mission thus far
Selecting Site J, a landing site for Philae
Landing on a Comet
Comets – an introduction
Rosetta's comet – at a glance
Missions to comets - Rosetta in context
Appendix A: Distances, dates, times for mission milestones
Aims. Approach observations with the Optical, Spectroscopic, and Infrared Remote Imaging System (OSIRIS) experiment onboard Rosetta are used to determine the rotation period, the direction of the spin axis, and the state of rotation of comet 67P's nucleus.
Methods. Photometric time series of 67P have been acquired by OSIRIS since the post wake-up commissioning of the payload in March 2014. Fourier analysis and convex shape inversion methods have been applied to the Rosetta data as well to the available ground-based observations.
Results. Evidence is found that the rotation rate of 67P has significantly changed near the time of its 2009 perihelion passage, probably due to sublimation-induced torque. We find that the sidereal rotation periods P1 = 12.76129 ± 0.00005 h and P2 = 12.4043 ± 0.0007 h for the apparitions before and after the 2009 perihelion, respectively, provide the best fit to the observations. No signs of multiple periodicity are found in the light curves down to the noise level, which implies that the comet is presently in a simple rotation state around its axis of largest moment of inertia. We derive a prograde rotation model with spin vector J2000 ecliptic coordinates λ = 65° ± 15°, β = + 59° ± 15°, corresponding to equatorial coordinates RA = 22°, Dec = + 76°. However, we find that the mirror solution, also prograde, at λ = 275° ± 15°, β = + 50° ± 15° (or RA = 274°, Dec = + 27°), is also possible at the same confidence level, due to the intrinsic ambiguity of the photometric problem for observations performed close to the ecliptic plane.
Press kit for the 6 August 2014 press event marking the arrival of Rosetta at comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
Contents:
Media services
Rosetta arrives at comet 67P/ Churyumov-Gerasimenko
Quick reference mission facts
Highlights from the Rosetta mission thus far
How Rosetta arrives at and orbits comet 67P/C-G
Selecting a Landing Site for Rosetta’s lander, Philae
Landing on a Comet
Comets – an introduction
Rosetta's comet – at a glance
Missions to comets - Rosetta in context
Appendix A: Draft programme for press event
Appendix B: Speakers at the 6 August press event
Appendix C: Selected Rosetta images & videos
Appendix D: Mission timeline for August to November
Appendix E: Distances, dates, times for mission milestones
An earlier version of the press kit contained an error on page 12: the paragraph on the provision of the lander should read: Rosetta's Philae lander is provided by a consortium led by DLR, MPS, CNES and ASI.
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Rosetta is ESA's comet-chasing mission to 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Launched on 2 March 2004, the spacecraft travelled for 10 years and required three gravity-assist flybys at Earth and one at Mars before homing in on its target.
Comets are considered to be the most primitive building blocks of our cosmic neighbourhood, surviving the Solar System's chaotic 4.6 billion-year history more or less intact. Laced with ice and organic materials, comets likely helped to 'seed' Earth with water, and perhaps even the ingredients for life. By studying one of these icy treasure chests in great detail, ESA's Rosetta is set to unlock the secrets of the Solar System.
Table of contents:
- Rosetta: Europe's comet-chaser
- The long trek
- Fleeting flybys of battered worlds
- Hot and cold
- What do we know about comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko?
- Rendezvous with a comet
- Landing on a comet
- The Rosetta orbiter
- The Philae lander
- Escorting a comet
- Long-distance communications
- An international enterprise
- Join the adventure
Note: a more recent Rosetta mission brochure (ESA BR-321) is available here.
Context. In July 2010 the ESA spacecraft Rosetta will fly by the main belt asteroid 21 Lutetia. Several observations of this asteroid have been performed so far, but its surface composition and nature are still a matter of debate. For a long time Lutetia was supposed to have a metallic nature due to its high IRAS albedo. Later on it has been suggested that the asteroid has a surface composition similar to primitive carbonaceous chondrite meteorites, while further observations proposed a possible genetic link with more evolved enstatite chondrite meteorites.
Aims. We performed visible spectroscopic observations of 21 Lutetia in November 2008 at the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (TNG, La Palma, Spain) to make a decisive contribution to solving the conundrum of its nature.
Methods. Thirteen visible spectra were acquired at different rotational phases and subsequently analyzed.
Results. We confirm a narrow spectral feature at about 0.47-0.48 microns which was already found by Lazzarin et al. (2004, A&A, 425, L25) in the spectra of Lutetia. We also confirm an earlier find of Lazzarin et al. (2004), who detected a spectral feature at about 0.6 microns in one of their Lutetia's spectra. More remarkable is the difference of our spectra though, which exhibit different spectral slopes between 0.6 and 0.75 microns and, in particular, we found that up to 20% of the Lutetia surface could have flatter spectra.
Conclusions. We detected a variation of the spectral slopes at different rotational phases that could be interpreted as possibly due to differences in the chemical/mineralogical composition as well as to inhomogeneities of the structure of the Lutetia's surface (e.g., to craters or albedo spots) in the southern hemisphere.
Aims.The aim of this paper is to investigate the surface composition of the two asteroids 21 Lutetia and 2867 Steins, targets of the Rosetta space mission.
Methods.We observed the two asteroids through their full rotational periods with the Infrared Spectrograph of the Spitzer Space Telescope to investigate the surface properties. The analysis of their thermal emission spectra was carried out to detect emissivity features that diagnose the surface composition.
Results. For both asteroids, the Christiansen peak, the Reststrahlen, and the Transparency features were detected. The thermal emissivity shows a clear analogy to carbonaceous chondrite meteorites, in particular to the CO-CV types for 21 Lutetia, while for 2867 Steins, already suggested as belonging to the E-type asteroids, the similarity to the enstatite achondrite meteorite is confirmed.
Methods. We obtained BVRI photometric and V-band polarimetric measurements over a wide range of phase angles, and visible and infrared spectra in the 0.4-2.4 micron range. We analyze them with previously published data to retrieve information about Lutetia's surface properties.
Results. Values of lightcurve amplitudes, absolute magnitude, opposition effect, phase coefficient, and BVRI colors of Lutetia surface seen at near pole-on aspect are determined. We define more precisely parameters of polarization phase curve and show their distinct deviation from any other moderate-albedo asteroid. An indication of possible variations in both polarization and spectral data across the asteroid surface are found. To explain features found by different techniques, we propose that (i) Lutetia has a non-convex shape, probably due to a large crater, and heterogeneous surface properties probably related to surface morphology; (ii) at least part of the surface is covered by a fine-grained regolith of particle size smaller than 20 micron; (iii) the closest meteorite analogues of Lutetia's surface composition are particular types of carbonaceous chondrites, or Lutetia has specific surface composition that is not representative among studied meteorites.
Aims. We present the first albedo determination of 2867 Steins, the asteroid target of the Rosetta space mission together with 21 Lutetia.
Methods.The data were obtained in polarimetric mode at the ESO-VLT telescope with the FORS1 instrument in the V and R filters. Observations were carried out from June to August 2005 covering the phase angle range from 10.3 degrees to 28.3 degrees, allowing the determination of the asteroid albedo by the well known experimental relationship between the albedo and the slope of the polarimetric curve at the inversion angle.
Results. The measured polarization values of Steins are small, confirming an E-type classification for this asteroid, as already suggested from its spectral properties. The inversion angle of the polarization curve in the V and R filters is respectively of 17.3±1.5 degrees and 18.4±1.0 degrees, and the corresponding slope parameter is of 0.037±0.003%/deg and 0.032±0.003%/deg. On the basis of its polarimetric slope value, we have derived an albedo of 0.45±0.1, that gives an estimated diameter of 4.6 km, assuming an absolute V magnitude of 13.18 mag.