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This article is available under the Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND license and permits non-commercial use of the work as published, without adaptation or alteration provided the work is fully attributed. For commercial reuse, permission must be requested below. ; The Optical, Spectroscopic, and Infrared Remote Imaging System (OSIRIS) onboard the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft acquired images of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko (67P) and its surrounding dust coma starting from May 2014 until September 2016. In this paper we present methods and results from analysis of OSIRIS images regarding the dust outflow in the innermost coma of 67P. The aim is to determine the global dust outflow behaviour and place constraints on physical processes affecting particles in the inner coma. We study the coma region right above the nucleus surface, spanning from the nucleus centre out to a distance of about 50 km comet centric distance (approximately 25 average comet radii). We primarily adopt an approach used by Thomas and Keller (1990) to study the dust outflow. We present the effects on azimuthally-averaged values of the dust reflectance of non-radial flow and non-point-source geometry, acceleration of dust particles, sublimation of icy dust particles after ejection from the surface, dust particle fragmentation, optical depth effects and the influence of gravitationally bound particles. All of these physical processes could modify the observed distribution of light scattered by the dust coma. In the image analysis, profiles of azimuthally averaged dust brightness as a function of impact parameter b (azimuthal average, "Ā-curve") were fitted with a simple function that best fits the shape of our profile curves (f(b;u,v,w,z)=u/b+wb+z). The analytical fit parameters (u, v, w, z), which hold the key information about the dust outflow behaviour, were saved in a comprehensive database. Through statistical analysis of these information, we show that the spatial distribution of dust follows free-radial outflow behaviour (i.e. force-free radial outflow with constant velocity) beyond distances larger than ∼11.9 km from the comet centre, which corresponds to a relative distance of about 6 average comet radii from the comet centre. Hence, we conclude that beyond this distance, and on average, fragmentation and gravitationally bound particles are negligible processes in determining the optically scattered light distribution in the innermost coma. Closer to the nucleus we observe dust outflow behaviour that deviates from free-radial outflow. A comparison of our result profiles with numerical models using a Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) approach with dust particle distributions calculated using a test particle approach has been used to demonstrate the influence of a complex shape and particle acceleration on the azimuthal average profiles. We demonstrate that, while other effects such as fragmentation or sublimation of dust particles cannot be ruled out, acceleration of the dust particles and effects arising from the shape of the irregular nucleus (non-point source geometry) are sufficient to explain the observed dust outflow behaviour from image data analysis. As a by-product of this work, we have calculated "Afρ" values for the 1/r regime. We found a peak in the coma activity in terms of Afρ (normalised to a phase angle of 90°) of ∼210 cm 20 days after perihelion. Furthermore, based on simplified models of particle motion within bound orbits, it is shown that limits on the total cross-sectional area of bound particles might be derived through further analysis. An example is given. © 2018 The Authors ; The team from the University of Bern is supported through the Swiss National Science Foundation and through the NCCR PlanetS. The project has also received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 686709. This work was supported by the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) under contract number 16.0008-2. The opinions expressed and arguments employed herein do not necessarily reflect the official views of the Swiss Government.

Open Access article, published by EDP Sciences, under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. ; We directly measured twenty overhanging cliffs on the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko extracted from the latest shape model and estimated the minimum tensile strengths needed to support them against collapse under the comet's gravity. We find extremely low strengths of around 1 Pa or less (1 to 5 Pa, when scaled to a metre length). The presence of eroded material at the base of most overhangs, as well as the observed collapse of two features and the implied previous collapse of another, suggests that they are prone to failure and that the true material strengths are close to these lower limits (although we only consider static stresses and not dynamic stress from, for example, cometary activity). Thus, a tensile strength of a few pascals is a good approximation for the tensile strength of the 67P nucleus material, which is in agreement with previous work. We find no particular trends in overhang properties either with size over the ~10-100 m range studied here or location on the nucleus. There are no obvious differences, in terms of strength, height or evidence of collapse, between the populations of overhangs on the two cometary lobes, suggesting that 67P is relatively homogenous in terms of tensile strength. Low material strengths are supportive of cometary formation as a primordial rubble pile or by collisional fragmentation of a small body (tens of km). ; his project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 686709. This work was supported by the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) under contract number 16.0008-2. The opinions expressed and arguments employed herein do not necessarily reflect the official view of the Swiss Government. OSIRIS was built by a consortium of the Max-Planck-Institut fur Sonnensystemforschung, Gottingen, Germany; the CISAS University of Padova, Italy; the Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille, France; the Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia, CSIC, Granada, the Universidad Politechnica de Madrid, Spain; the Department of Physics and Astronomy of Uppsala University, Sweden; and the Institut fur Datentechnik und Kommunikationsnetze der Technischen Universitat Braunschweig, Germany. The support of the national funding agencies of Germany (DLR), France (CNES), Italy (ASI), Spain (MEC), Sweden (SNSB), and the ESA Technical Directorate is gratefully acknowledged. We thank the Rosetta Science Operations Centre and the Rosetta Mission Operations Centre for the successful rendezvous with comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

A publisher correction to this article was published on 17 April 2019 ; Global dust storms on Mars are rare1,2 but can affect the Martian atmosphere for several months. They can cause changes in atmospheric dynamics and inflation of the atmosphere3, primarily owing to solar heating of the dust3. In turn, changes in atmospheric dynamics can affect the distribution of atmospheric water vapour, with potential implications for the atmospheric photochemistry and climate on Mars4. Recent observations of the water vapour abundance in the Martian atmosphere during dust storm conditions revealed a high-altitude increase in atmospheric water vapour that was more pronounced at high northern latitudes5,6, as well as a decrease in the water column at low latitudes7,8. Here we present concurrent, high-resolution measurements of dust, water and semiheavy water (HDO) at the onset of a global dust storm, obtained by the NOMAD and ACS instruments onboard the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter. We report the vertical distribution of the HDO/H2O ratio (D/H) from the planetary boundary layer up to an altitude of 80 kilometres. Our findings suggest that before the onset of the dust storm, HDO abundances were reduced to levels below detectability at altitudes above 40 kilometres. This decrease in HDO coincided with the presence of water-ice clouds. During the storm, an increase in the abundance of H2O and HDO was observed at altitudes between 40 and 80 kilometres. We propose that these increased abundances may be the result of warmer temperatures during the dust storm causing stronger atmospheric circulation and preventing ice cloud formation, which may confine water vapour to lower altitudes through gravitational fall and subsequent sublimation of ice crystals3. The observed changes in H2O and HDO abundance occurred within a few days during the development of the dust storm, suggesting a fast impact of dust storms on the Martian atmosphere. © 2019, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited. ; This project acknowledges funding by the Belgian Science Policy Office (BELSPO), with financial and contractual coordination by the ESA Prodex Office (PEA 4000103401, 4000121493); by the Spanish MICINN through its Plan Nacional and by European funds under grants ESP2015-65064-C2-1-P and ESP2017-87143-R (MINECO/FEDER); by the UK Space Agency through grants ST/R005761/1, ST/P001262/1, ST/R001405/1, ST/S00145X/1, ST/R001367/1, ST/P001572/1 and ST/R001502/1; and the Italian Space Agency through grant 2018-2-HH.0. The IAA/CSIC team acknowledges financial support from the State Agency for Research of the Spanish MCIU through the 'Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa' award for the Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia (SEV-2017-0709). This work was supported by the Belgian Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique - FNRS under grant number 30442502 (ET_HOME). The ACS experiment is led by IKI, Space Research Institute in Moscow, assisted by LATMOS in France. The project acknowledges funding by Roscosmos and CNES. The science operations of ACS are funded by Roscosmos and ESA. IKI affiliates acknowledge funding under grant number 14.W03.31.0017 and contract number 0120.0 602993 (0028-2014-0004) of the Russian government. ; Peer Reviewed

A publisher correction to this article was published on 17 April 2019 ; The detection of methane on Mars has been interpreted as indicating that geochemical or biotic activities could persist on Mars today1. A number of different measurements of methane show evidence of transient, locally elevated methane concentrations and seasonal variations in background methane concentrations2–5. These measurements, however, are difficult to reconcile with our current understanding of the chemistry and physics of the Martian atmosphere6,7, which—given methane's lifetime of several centuries—predicts an even, well mixed distribution of methane1,6,8. Here we report highly sensitive measurements of the atmosphere of Mars in an attempt to detect methane, using the ACS and NOMAD instruments onboard the ESA-Roscosmos ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter from April to August 2018. We did not detect any methane over a range of latitudes in both hemispheres, obtaining an upper limit for methane of about 0.05 parts per billion by volume, which is 10 to 100 times lower than previously reported positive detections2,4. We suggest that reconciliation between the present findings and the background methane concentrations found in the Gale crater4 would require an unknown process that can rapidly remove or sequester methane from the lower atmosphere before it spreads globally. © 2019, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited. ; ExoMars is the space mission of ESA and Roscosmos. The ACS experiment is led by IKI, the Space Research Institute in Moscow, assisted by LATMOS in France. The project acknowledges funding by Roscosmos and CNES. The science operations of ACS are funded by Roscosmos and ESA. IKI affiliates acknowledge funding under grant number 14.W03.31.0017 and contract number 0120.0 602993 (0028-2014-0004) of the Russian government. The NOMAD experiment is led by the Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy (BIRA-IASB), assisted by co-PI teams from Spain (IAA-CSIC), Italy (INAF-IAPS), and the UK (Open University). This project acknowledges funding by the Belgian Science Policy Office (BELSPO), with the financial and contractual coordination of the ESA Prodex Office (PEA 4000103401 and PEA 4000121493), by Spanish MICINN through its Plan Nacional and by European funds under grants ESP2015-65064-C2-1-P and ESP2017-87143-R (MINECO/FEDER), as well as by the UK Space Agency through grants ST/R005761/1, ST/P001262/1, ST/R001405/1, ST/S00145X/1, ST/R001367/1, ST/P001572/1 and ST/R001502/1, and the Italian Space Agency through grant 2018-2-HH.0. This work was supported by the Belgian Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique-FNRS under grant number 30442502 (ET_HOME). ; Peer Reviewed