Model of dust thermal emission of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko for the

abstract The ESA's Rosetta spacecraft will arrive at comet 67P/Churyumov –Gerasimenko in 2014. The study of gas anddust emission is primary objective of several instruments on the Rosetta spacecraft, including the MicrowaveInstrument for the Rosetta Orbiter (MIRO). We developed a model of dust thermal emission to estimate thedetectability of dust in the vicinity of the nucleus w ith MIRO. Our model computes the power received by theMIRO antenna in limb viewing as a function of the geometry of the observations and the physical properties ofthe grains. We show that detection in the millimeter and submillimeter channels can be achieved nearperihelion.& 2013 Published by Elsevier Ltd. 1. IntroductionComet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko (67P) was discovered inMay 1969 after its perihelion at 1.28 AU. Because of repeated closeencounters with Jupiter in 1840 and 1959, the perihelion distancevaried from 2.7 AU prior to 1959 to the current value (1.28 AU) andthe activity of the comet increased. This increase of the activitylikely facilitated its discovery. Comet 67P was observed during theseven perihelion passages since its discovery and an initialcharacterization of the activity (Osip et al., 1992; Weiler et al.,2004; Lara et al., 2011), of the nucleus properties (Lamy et al.,2007; Tubiana et al., 2008; Kelley et al., 2009) and of the comaenvironment (Hansen et al., 2007; Agarwal et al., 2007, 2010), hasbeen drawn.The ESA (European Space Agency) Rosetta spacecraft waslaunched on 2 March 2004, to reach comet 67P in May 2014.The probe will be inserted into an orbit around the nucleus at aheliocentric distance r