Thermal simulations of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko: shape and obliquity effects

We examine the impact of shape and orbital variations on the thermal history of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, the target of the Rosetta space mission. Introduction Rosetta will rendezvous comet 67P/ChuryumovGerasimenko to study in details its nucleus and its activity from ~3.5 AU to its perihelion. Cometary nuclei observed in situ are typically non-spherical and present a variety of terrains. This work analyzes the results of a quasi threedimensional approach for irregularly shaped cometary nuclei [1], which has been developed to interpret the current activity of comets in terms of initial characteristics, and to predict shape and internal stratification evolution of the nucleus. Our model has been applied to the specific orbital history of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (Table 1 [2]).