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Context Pinnacles, local promontories of varied shapes including spires with pointed tops, are observed on the surface of the 67P's cometary nucleus in the OSIRIS and NavCam images. Their presence and characteristics allow to infer the magnitude of the surface erosion and the degree of heterogeneity of the consolidated nucleus material. Aims To identify these pinnacles and consider implications, which follow from their presence and characteristics. Methods Identification of pinnacles in the available OSIRIS and NavCam images, as well as in the model images of the nucleus built from the digital terrain model, and an investigation of their morphology. Results We identified and measured 49 pinnacles in 13 regions of the studied part of the nucleus. The pinnacles are typically asymmetric with somewhat different slope angles at different slopes whose maximum values range from 40 to 90°, sometimes with small overhangs. Their heights vary from 10 to 20 to 100–200 m and the foot diameters from 30 to 300 m. Our analysis of the OSIRIS images of the pinnacles showed that they have surface texture similar to that of consolidated nucleus material and are probably composed of it. Conclusions The observed characteristics of pinnacles found on 67P agree with the suggestion that they are erosion remnants formed due to a slowdown of erosion in places where nucleus material is more resistant to sublimational erosion than the material around it. In this case the maximum heights of pinnacles (100–200 m) gives a lower boundary for the amount of surface material lost and their diameters (typically tens of meters) are a measure of the size of the erosion-resistant parts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After coming to rest on the night side of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, the ROLIS camera on-board Rosetta’s Philae lander acquired five images of the surface below the lander, four of which were with the aid of LED illumination of different colors. The images confirm that Philae was perched on a sloped surface. A local horizon is visible in one corner of the image, beyond which we can see the coma. Having spent a full day on the surface Philae was commanded to lift and rotate, after which a final, sixth, LED image was acquired. The change in perspective allowed us to construct a shape model of the surface. The distance to the foreground was about 80 cm, much larger than the nominal 30 cm. This caused stray light, rather than directly reflected LED light, to dominate the image signal, complicating the analysis. The images show a lumpy surface with a roughness of apparently fractal nature. Its appearance is completely different from that of the first landing site, which was characterized by centimeter to meter-sized debris (Mottola et al., 2015). We recognize neither particles nor pores at the image resolution of 0.8 mm per pixel and large color variations are absent. The surface has a bi-modal brightness distribution that can be interpreted in terms of the degree of consolidation, a hypothesis that we support with experimental evidence. We propose the surface below the lander to consist of smooth, cracked plates with unconsolidated edges, similar to terrain seen in CIVA images. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Rosetta spacecraft reached Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (hereafter 67P/C-G) in August 2014 at an heliocentric distance of 3.6 a.u. and was then put in orbit around its nucleus to perform detailed observations. Among the collected data are the images acquired by the OSIRIS instrument up to the perihelion passage of the comet in August 2015, which allowed us to map the entire nucleus surface at high-resolution in the visible. Stereophotoclinometry methods have been used to reconstruct a global high-resolution shape model and to monitor its rotational parameters using data collected up to perihelion. The nucleus has a conspicuous bilobate shape with overall dimensions along its principal axes of (4.34 ± 0.02) × (2.60 ± 0.02) × (2.12 ± 0.06) km. The best-fit ellipsoid dimensions of the individual lobes along their principal axes of inertia are found to be 4.10 × 3.52 × 1.63 km and 2.50 × 2.14 × 1.64 km. Their volume amounts to 66% and 27% of the total volume of the nucleus. The two lobes are connected by a “neck” whose volume has been estimated to represent ∼7% of the total volume of the comet. Combining the derived volume of 18.8 ± 0.3 km 3 with the mass of 9.982 ± 0.003 × 10 12  kg determined by the Rosetta/RSI experiment, we obtained a bulk density of the nucleus of 532 ± 7 kg m − 3 . Together with the companion value of 535 ± 35 kg m − 3 deduced from the stereophotogrammetry shape model of the nucleus (Preusker et al. [2015] Astron. Astrophys. 583, A33), these constitute the first reliable and most accurate determination of the density of a cometary nucleus to date. The calculated porosity is quite large, ranging approximately from 70% to 75% depending upon the assumed density of the dust grains and the dust-to-ice mass ratio. The nature of the porosity, either micro or macro or both, remains unconstrained. The coordinates of the center of gravity are not compatible with a uniform nucleus density. The direction of the offset between the center of gravity and the center of figure suggests that the big lobe has a slightly higher bulk density compared to the small one. the center of mass position cannot be explained by different, but homogenous densities in the two lobes. The initial rotational period of 12.4041 ± 0.0001 h of the nucleus persisted until October 2014. It then slightly increased to a maximum of 12.4304 h reached on 19 May 2015 and finally dropped to 12.305 h just before perihelion on August 10, 2015. A periodogram analysis of the (RA, Dec) direction of the Z -axis of the comet obtained in parallel with the shape reconstruction exhibits a highly significant minima at 11.5 ± 0.5 day clearly indicating an excited rotational state with an amplitude of 0.15 ± 0.03°. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] We present a calibration for the Dawn Framing Camera based on in-flight observations. [•] The radiometric and geometric calibrations are based on standard star and star field images. [•] Analysis of flat fields and in-field stray light are deferred to a follow-up paper. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: We present a new method to perform disk-resolved photometry in order to investigate the intrinsic photometric properties of the surface of small Solar System bodies. We adopt the standard approach where a shape model is combined with a photometric formalism – in practise the Hapke formalism – to remove the effects of topography and recover the photometric (Hapke) parameters of either the global surface or, in its most elaborated form, the spatial variations of these parameters across the surface. Our method operates in the space of the facets representing the three-dimensional shape of the body, whereas all past analysis have always been performed in the space of the image pixels although they are not intrinsic to the surface of the body. This has the advantage of automatically tracking the same local surface element on a series of images. We first apply our method to images of the nucleus of Comet 9P/Tempel 1 obtained by the High-Resolution Imager (HRI) instrument on board the Deep Impact spacecraft and our derived Hapke parameters are in good agreement with those published by Li et al. (Li, J.-Y. et al. [2007]. Icarus 187, 41–55) within their respective uncertainties. We confirm the presence of an extended region of higher roughness in the southern hemisphere of the nucleus and the higher albedo of the ice-rich regions identified by Sunshine et al. (Sunshine, J.M. et al. [2006]. Science 311, 1453–1455) near the equator. The photometric properties of Asteroid (2867) Steins are then studied from multi-spectral images obtained with the OSIRIS Wide Angle Camera (WAC) on board the Rosetta spacecraft during its flyby on 5 September 2008. Our analysis indicates that the surface is highly porous (∼84%) and that it exhibits both a shadow-hiding opposition effect (SHOE) and probably, a coherent-backscatter opposition effect (CBOE). The single scattering albedo is the highest (SSA=0.57) ever observed among small bodies visited by spacecrafts. Our modelled roughness parameter is indicative of a high microscale roughness. The surface of Steins may in fact exhibit a fractal surface with high roughness present on a large range of scales, from micrometers to centimeters. The geometric and Bond albedos are calculated with the Hapke parameters yielding A p =0.39±0.02 and A B =0.24±0.01. This high albedo is consistent with an iron-poor surface composition similar to aubrite meteorites which are suspected to originate from the E-type asteroids. We find no photometric variations on the surface at the (limited) spatial resolution of the WAC images. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: We present an analysis of the observations of the Deep Impact event performed by the OSIRIS narrow angle camera aboard the Rosetta spacecraft over two weeks, in an effort to characterize the cometary dust grains ejected from the nucleus of Comet 9P/Tempel 1. We adopt a Monte Carlo approach to generate calibrated synthetic images, and a linear combination of them is fitted to the calibrated images so as to determine the physical parameters of the dust cloud. Our model considers spherical olivine particles with a density of 3780 kg m−3. It incorporates constraints on the direction of the cone of emission coming from additional images obtained at Pic du Midi observatory, and constraints on the dust terminal velocities coming from the physics of the impact. We find that the slope of the differential dust size distribution of grains with radii <20 μm () is , a value typical of cometary dust tails. This shows that there is no evidence in our data for an enhancement in sub-micron particles in the ejecta compared to the typical dust distribution of active comets. We estimate the mass of particles with radii <1.4 μm () to be . These particles represent more than 80% of the cross-section of the observed dust cloud. The mass carried by larger particles depends whether the gas significantly increases the kinetic energy of the grains in the inner coma; it lies in the range for particles with radii <100 μm (). We obtain the distribution of terminal velocities reached by the dust after the dust–gas interaction which is very well constrained between 10 and 600 m s−1. It is characterized by Gaussian with a maximum at about 190 m s−1 and a width at half maximum of 150 m s−1. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: We present an analysis of the observations of the Deep Impact event performed by the OSIRIS narrow angle camera aboard the Rosetta spacecraft over two weeks, in an effort to characterize the cometary dust grains ejected from the nucleus of Comet 9P/Tempel 1. We adopt a Monte Carlo approach to generate calibrated synthetic images, and a linear combination of them is fitted to the calibrated images so as to determine the physical parameters of the dust cloud. Our model considers spherical olivine particles with a density of 3780 kg m−3. It incorporates constraints on the direction of the cone of emission coming from additional images obtained at Pic du Midi observatory, and constraints on the dust terminal velocities coming from the physics of the impact. We find that the slope of the differential dust size distribution of grains with radii <20 μm () is , a value typical of cometary dust tails. This shows that there is no evidence in our data for an enhancement in sub-micron particles in the ejecta compared to the typical dust distribution of active comets. We estimate the mass of particles with radii <1.4 μm () to be . These particles represent more than 80% of the cross-section of the observed dust cloud. The mass carried by larger particles depends whether the gas significantly increases the kinetic energy of the grains in the inner coma; it lies in the range for particles with radii <100 μm (). We obtain the distribution of terminal velocities reached by the dust after the dust–gas interaction which is very well constrained between 10 and 600 m s−1. It is characterized by Gaussian with a maximum at about 190 m s−1 and a width at half maximum of 150 m s−1. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]