Seminar über aktuelle Fragen zur Dynamik komplexer Fluide: Giant ripples on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko sculpted by sunset thermal wind

Seminar über aktuelle Fragen zur Dynamik komplexer Fluide

  • Date: Jun 15, 2018
  • Time: 10:15 AM - 11:15 AM (Local Time Germany)
  • Speaker: Dr. Pan Jia
  • PMMH, ESPCI Paris, France
  • Location: Max-Planck-Institut für Dynamik und Selbstorganisation (MPIDS)
  • Room: SR 0.77
  • Host: MPIDS/DCF
  • Contact: guido.schriever@ds.mpg.de
The recent approach of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko by the spacecraft Rosetta has revealed the presence of astonishing dune-like patterns. How can the radial outgassing, caused by heating when passing close to the sun, produce a vapour flow along the surface of the comet dense enough to transport grains? We show that the vapour flow emitted by the comet around its perihelion spreads laterally in thermal winds, due to the strong pressure difference between zones illuminated by sunlight and those in shadow. Drawing on the physical mechanisms at work for the formation of dunes on Earth and planetary bodies, we can explain the emergence of these bedforms in such extreme cometary conditions at the observed crest-to-crest size, about 10 m. Although generated by a rarefied atmosphere, they are in fact analogous to ripples emerging on granular beds submitted to viscous shear flows.
Ref: P. Jia, B. Andreotti and P. Claudin, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 114, pp 2509-2514 (2017).
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