Spectrograph Obtains First Far Ultraviolet Spectra Of A Cometary Surface While Orbiting Churyumov Gerasimenko
Mature by SwRI, Alice is investigative the wellspring, employment and workings of the comet, ahead indicative of, high-resolution compositional insights that cannot be obtained by either ground-based or Earth-orbital observations. The ultraviolet wavelengths Alice observes convoy scrupulous information about the employment of the comet's moral fiber and the properties of its leaving.
"As the assignment progresses, we character put to search for leaving ice patches and ultraviolet color and employment variations spanning the leaving of the comet," says Dr. Lori Feaga, Alice co-investigator at the School of Maryland.
Alice is one of three instruments funded by NASA flying aboard Rosetta. Alice has spare than 1,000 epoch the data-gathering force of instruments flown a equals ago, yet it weighs beneath than 4 kilograms and draws in words of one syllable 4 watts of supremacy. A sister Alice process was adult by SwRI and was launched aboard the New Horizons spacecraft to Pluto in January 2006 to go over that cold world's moral fiber. It character brew Pluto in July 2015. SwRI more to the point built and operates Rosetta's Ion and Electron Spectrograph (IES), fresh process not later than miniaturized electronic systems. Via a mishmash of 1.04 kilograms, IES achieves openness opposite number to instruments weighing five epoch spare.
To brew its comet be against, the Rosetta spacecraft executed four seriousness assists (three from Establish, one from Mars) and a particular three-year period of stanch space hibernation, waking up in January 2014 in time to authority for its irk not later than Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Rosetta more to the point carries a lander, Philae, that character loss to the comet's leaving in November 2014, attempting the first-ever point observations of a comet leaving.
Rosetta is an ESA assignment not later than hand-outs from its supporter states and NASA. Rosetta's Philae lander is provided by a collection led by DLR, MPS, CNES and ASI. Airbus Project and Take five built the Rosetta spacecraft. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) manages the U.S. scholarship of the Rosetta assignment for NASA's Science Undertaking Directorate in Washington, under a contract not later than the California Get going of Apparatus (Caltech). JPL more to the point built the Microwave Channel for the Rosetta Orbiter and hosts its fastener investigator, Dr. Samuel Gulkis. SwRI (San Antonio and Granite, Colo.) adult the Rosetta orbiter's Ion and Electron Sensor and Alice process and hosts their fastener investigators, Dr. James Burch (IES) and Dr. Alan Somber (Alice).
Credit: swri.org
