Rotation dynamics and torque efficiency of cometary nuclei

¹ Zuse Institute Berlin, 14195 Berlin, Germany
² Institute for Theoretical Physics, Johannes Kepler Universität Linz, Austria

^★ Corresponding author: laeuter@zib.de

Received: 21 January 2025
Accepted: 30 May 2025

Abstract

Context. The dynamics of a rigid cometary nucleus is described by the evolutions of its center-of-mass and of its rotation state. Solar irradiation that reaches the surface of a cometary nucleus causes the sublimation of volatiles that form the coma around the nucleus. The sublimation process transfers linear momentum and rotational angular momentum from the nucleus to the surrounding space, and thus affects the dynamics via nongravitational forces and nongravitational torques. With the exception of close approaches to planets, these torques exert the dominant influence on the rotation states of cometary nuclei.

Aims. The 2014–2016 Rosetta mission accompanying the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko provides the longest continuous observational data to track its rotation state. In particular, the data set encompasses the direction of the angular velocity, denoted by ω, and the angular frequency, |ω|, over a time period of approximately 700 days. The observed change in the rotation state is not explained by a low heat conductivity thermophysical model in combination with a homogeneous surface ice coverage of comet 67P. Spatially and/or temporally varying weights for effective active fraction with respect to a prescribed set of surface regions provide a potential solution to this problem.

Methods. Here, we present a methodology for classifying the surface based on vectorial efficiency of the torque. On any cometary surface without geometric symmetry, the methodology highlights the decomposition into eight characteristic regions that encode the signs of torque efficiency with respect to all vector components. This decomposition is divided into two subsets of four regions, each of which is located in one of both hemispheric regions.

Results. We analyze in detail rotation states close to lowest energy and different thermophysical models, and we discuss how the uncertainties of observations affect the model parameters. We study the occurrence of these regions for an oblate ellipsoid, a near-prolate ellipsoid, a bilobed shape, and a shape model analogous to that of comet 67P. The sensitivity analysis for comet 67P indicates that the observations constrain only one of the eight weights uniquely. The other directions are poorly constrained and show the limitation of the rotational data in determining the regional activity on comet 67P.