The Nature and Frequency of the Gas Outbursts in Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko observed by the Alice Far-ultraviolet Spectrograph on Rosetta

Alice is a far-ultraviolet imaging spectrograph onboard Rosetta that, amongst multiple objectives, is designed to observe emissions from various atomic and molecular species from within the coma of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The initial observations, made following orbit insertion in August 2014, showed emissions of atomic hydrogen and oxygen spatially localized close to the nucleus and attributed to photoelectron impact dissociation of H2O vapor. Weaker emissions from atomic carbon were subsequently detected and also attributed to electron impact dissociation, of CO2, the relative H I and C I line intensities reflecting the variation of CO2 to H2O column abundance along the line-of-sight through the coma. Beginning in mid-April 2015, Alice sporadically observed a number of outbursts above the sunward limb characterized by sudden increases in the atomic emissions, particularly the semi-forbidden O I 1356 multiplet, over a period of 10-30 minutes, without a corresponding enhancement in long wavelength solar reflected light characteristic of dust production. A large increase in the brightness ratio O I 1356/O I 1304 suggests O2 as the principal source of the additional gas. These outbursts do not correlate with any of the visible images of outbursts taken with either OSIRIS or the navigation camera. Beginning in June 2015 the nature of the Alice spectrum changed considerably with CO Fourth Positive band emission observed continuously, varying with pointing but otherwise fairly constant in time. However, CO does not appear to be a major driver of any of the observed outbursts.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal Letter

Rosetta-Alice Observations of Exospheric Hydrogen and Oxygen on Mars

The European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft, en route to a 2014 encounter with comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, made a gravity assist swing-by of Mars on 25 February 2007, closest approach being at 01:54UT. The Alice instrument on board Rosetta, a lightweight far-ultraviolet imaging spectrograph optimized for in situ cometary spectroscopy in the 750-2000 A spectral band, was used to study the daytime Mars upper atmosphere including emissions from exospheric hydrogen and oxygen. Offset pointing, obtained five hours before closest approach, enabled us to detect and map the HI Lyman-alpha and Lyman-beta emissions from exospheric hydrogen out beyond 30,000 km from the planet's center. These data are fit with a Chamberlain exospheric model from which we derive the hydrogen density at the 200 km exobase and the H escape flux. The results are comparable to those found from the the Ultraviolet Spectrometer experiment on the Mariner 6 and 7 fly-bys of Mars in 1969. Atomic oxygen emission at 1304 A is detected at altitudes of 400 to 1000 km above the limb during limb scans shortly after closest approach. However, the derived oxygen scale height is not consistent with recent models of oxygen escape based on the production of suprathermal oxygen atoms by the dissociative recombination of O2+.Comment: 17 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in Icaru

Ultraviolet Spectroscopy of Comet 9P/Tempel 1 with Alice/Rosetta during the Deep Impact Encounter

We report on spectroscopic observations of periodic comet 9P/Tempel 1 by the Alice ultraviolet spectrograph on the Rosetta spacecraft in conjunction with NASA's Deep Impact mission. Our objectives were to measure an increase in atomic and molecular emissions produced by the excavation of volatile sub-surface material. We unambiguously detected atomic oxygen emission from the quiescent coma but no enhancement at the 10% (1-sigma) level following the impact. We derive a quiescent water production rate of 9 x 10^27 molecules per second with an estimated uncertainty of 30%. Our upper limits to the volatiles produced by the impact are consistent with other estimates.Comment: 11 pages, 4 postscript figures. Accepted for publication in Icarus special issue on Deep Impac

Response of Microchannel Plate (MCP) Detectors to MeV Electrons: Beamline tests in support of Juno, JUICE, and Europa Mission UVS instrument investigations

The response of Microchannel Plate (MCP) detectors to far-UV photons is excellent. MCPs provide a photon-counting capability that is especially useful for high-quality stellar and solar occultation measurements. However, use of MCPs within the Jovian magnetosphere for UV measurements is hampered by their ~30% detection efficiency to energetic electrons and ~1% efficiency to γ-rays. High-Z shielding stops energetic electrons, but creates numerous secondary particles; γ-rays are the most important of these for MCPs. These detected particles are a noise background to the measured far-UV photon signal, and at particularly intense times their combination can approach detector global count rates of ~500 kHz when operating at nominal HV levels. To address the challenges presented by the intense radiation environment experienced during Europa encounters we performed electron beam radiation testing of the Juno-UVS flight spare cross-delay line (XDL) MCP in June 2012 at MIT’s High Voltage Research Laboratory (HVRL), and again in Nov. 2013 adding an atomic-layer deposition (ALD) coated test-MCP, to measure the detection efficiency and pulse height distribution characteristics for energetic electrons and γ-rays. A key result from this UVS-dedicated SwRI IR&D project is a detailed characterization of our XDL’s response to both particles (electrons and γ-rays) and photons as a function of HV level. These results provide confidence that good science data quality is achievable when operating at Europa closest approach and/or in orbit. Comparisons with in-flight data obtained with New Horizons Pluto-Alice MeV electron response measurements at Jupiter (Steffl et al., JGR, 2012), LRO-LAMP electron and proton event data, and Juno-UVS Earth proton-belt flyby data, and recent bench tests with radioactive sources at Sensor Sciences increase this confidence. We present a description of the test setup, quantitative results, and several lessons learned to help inform future beamline test experiments dedicated to instrument developments for NASA's next large mission to Europa and ESA's JUICE mission to Ganymede