In November 2014, the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission achieved its objective of successfully landing the space-probe 'Philae' on the surface of a comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The Cometary Sampling and Composition (COSAC) Experiment, a gas chromatograph-time-of-flight-mass spectrometer on Philae, identified sixteen volatile organic molecules native to the comet's environment. I would talk briefly about these identifications. I would also speak on the structural and compositional analyses of Titan tholins, the carbonaceous aerosols in the atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan, which is also believed to be analogous to the surface composition of several Centaurs and Trans-Neptunian Objects - both known as reservoirs of comets. I would finally speak on the operational capabilities of COSAC instrument and measures taken for its parametric optimization and calibration with the test-bed instrument maintained in a vacuum chamber at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research. These calibrations have validated the novel detections COSAC has made.

This event is part of the eventgroup Karlsruhe Seminar for Aerosol Physics

Speaker
Dr. Chaitanya Giri

Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research
Göttingen

Organizer
Institut für Meteorologie und Klimaforschung
Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT)
Hermann von Helmholtz Platz 1
76344 Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen
Tel: 0721-608-0
Mail: sekretariat ∂does-not-exist.imk-asf kit edu

Targetgroup
Scientific Staff