Abstract
The short-period comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (hereafter 67P/C-G) is the target of the ESA ROSETTA mission. The spacecraft will be launched on 2004 February 24 (UT).We observed 67P/C-G in optical wavelengths at Kiso Observatory 105cm Schmidt telescope and at University of Hawaii 2.2m telescope between 2002 September 9 and 2003 June 4 (UT). The comet 67P/C-G had passed its perihelion on 2002 August 18. We used the R-band and B-band filters.
To better understand the observed dust trail images, we created a series of dynamical simulation for the dust particles ejected from the comet nucleus. The size of dust particles near the nucleus appear to be relatively large. Based on the comparison between the obtained images and our model calculation, we discuss the size distribution of the dust particles ejected from the 67P/C-G nucleus.
