Dust particle impacts during the Giotto encounter with comet Grigg-Skjellerup

IN the European Space Agency's 1992 Giotto Extended Mission, the Dust Impact Detection System operated successfully during a fly-by that took the spacecraft within about 200 km of the nucleus of comet Grigg–Skjellerup. During the encounter, three meteoroid impacts were detected on Giotto's...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature (London) 1993-04, Vol.362 (6422), p.732-734
Main Authors: McDonnell, J. A. M, McBride, N, Beard, R, Bussoletti, E, Colangeli, L, Eberhardt, P, Firth, J. G, Grard, R, Green, S. F, Greenberg, J. M, Grün, E, Hughes, D. W, Keller, H. U, Kissel, J, Lindblad, B. A, Mandeville, J.-C, Perry, C. H, Rembor, K, Rickman, H, Schwehm, G. H, Turner, R. F, Wallis, M. K, Zarnecki, J. C
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Comets
Dust
Humanities and Social Sciences
letter
multidisciplinary
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Space exploration
Spacecraft
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Summary:IN the European Space Agency's 1992 Giotto Extended Mission, the Dust Impact Detection System operated successfully during a fly-by that took the spacecraft within about 200 km of the nucleus of comet Grigg–Skjellerup. During the encounter, three meteoroid impacts were detected on Giotto's front shield. The particle masses were found to be lOO +105 -50 µg, 2 +4 -1 µg and 20 +25 -10 µg, suggesting that the mass distribution of the cometary dust was dominated by larger particles. This is supported by the independent detection of a very large meteoroid (14 +40 -4 mg) by the Giotto Radio-Science Experiment, and is consistent with data over the same mass range from the 1986 encounter with comet Halley. The results indicate a higher rate of mass loss from the nucleus than previously thought, and hence a higher dust-to-gas mass ratio.
ISSN:0028-0836
1476-4687
DOI:10.1038/362732a0