Rosetta LAP status

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Prediction for Encounter with Ion Tail of
Comet 45P/Honda-Mrkos-Pajdusakova, July 6, 2006
(Sofie Spjuth)
Green comet path Yellow ion tail for various
vsw (blue 400 km/s) Red square Rosetta
For vsw 400 km/s, Rosetta passed within 0.05 AU
from ion tail at 0.7 AU from comet.
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Problem(-s) And the list is not exhaustive...

• Comet tail all to wide
• Current (from MAG) does not make sense -- radial
  along tail direction
• What is this?
• What should a real comet tail look like?

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Ulysses Encounter with Hyakutake Ion Tail May 1,
1996 Now concluded by Some to be no comet tail
at all...
Ulysses-comet gt 3 AU Rosetta-comet 0.7 AU
Jones et al., Nature, 2000
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So, are there any real comet tail observations?

• Sofie also checked for possible tail crossings
  for other s/c, including Spaceship Earth
• PRAO-student Martin Hult checked ACE/IMP-8 data
  for Sofies pre- and postdictions
• Best event P/Catalina (2005 JQ5) July 9, 2005
  (DOY 190)

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Something? current sheet(?) heavy ions - but
density jump...
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Is this a comet tail crossing?

• Minimum variance on B?
• Models for what to find?
• Other s/w disturbances -- what do they look
  like?? What do you know?
• Any unambiguous signature of a comet tail?
• Ideas?
• Comments?