# Encounter of Parker Solar Probe and a Comet-like Object During Their Perihelia: Simulations and Measurements

Jiansen He, Bo Cui, Liping Yang, Chuanpeng Hou, Lei Zhang, Wing-Huen Ip, Yingdong Jia, Chuanfei Dong, Die Duan, Qiugang Zong, et al.

► To cite this version:

Jiansen He, Bo Cui, Liping Yang, Chuanpeng Hou, Lei Zhang, et al. Encounter of Parker Solar Probe and a Comet-like Object During Their Perihelia: Simulations and Measurements. EGU General Assembly 2021, 2021, Online, France. 10.5194/egusphere-egu21-14686. insu-03559738

HAL Id: insu-03559738

https://insu.hal.science/insu-03559738

Submitted on 7 Feb 2022

**HAL** is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers.

L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire **HAL**, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.

<figure><img src="image_1.png" /></figure>

Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
<figure><img src="image_2.png" /></figure>

# Encounter of Parker Solar Probe and a Comet-like Object During Their Perihelia: Simulations and Measurements

Jiansen He<fnref n="1" />, Bo Cui<fnref n="1" />, Liping Yang<fnref n="2" />, Chuanpeng Hou<fnref n="1" />, Lei Zhang<fnref n="1" />, Wing-Huen Ip<fnref n="3" />, Yingdong Jia<fnref n="4" />, Chuanfei Dong<fnref n="5" />, Die Duan<fnref n="1" />, Qiugang Zong<fnref n="1" />, Stuart Bale<fnref n="6" />,<fnref n="7" />,<fnref n="8" />, Marc Pulupa<fnref n="6" />, John Bonnell<fnref n="6" />, Thierry Dudok de Wit<fnref n="10" />, Keith Goetz<fnref n="11" />, Peter Harvey<fnref n="6" />, Robert MacDowall<fnref n="12" />, and David Malaspina<fnref n="13" />

Parker Solar Probe (PSP) aims at exploring the nascent solar wind close to the Sun. Meanwhile, PSP is also expected to encounter small objects like comets and asteroids. In this work, we survey the ephemerides to find a chance of recent encounter, and then model the interaction between released dusty plasmas and solar wind plasmas. On 2019 September 2, a comet-like object 322P/SOHO just passed its perihelion flying to a heliocentric distance of 0.12 au, and swept by PSP at a relative distance as close as 0.025 au. We present the dynamics of dust particles released from 322P, forming a curved dust tail. Along the PSP path in the simulated inner heliosphere, the states of plasma and magnetic field are sampled and illustrated, with the magnetic field sequences from simulation results being compared directly with the in-situ measurements from PSP. Through comparison, we suggest that 322P might be at a deficient activity level releasing limited dusty plasmas during its way to becoming a "rock comet". We also present images of solar wind streamers as recorded by WISPR, showing an indication of dust bombardment for the images superposed with messy trails. We observe from LASCO coronagraph that 322P was transiting from a dimming region to a relatively bright streamer during its perihelion passage, and simulate to confirm that 322P was flying from relatively faster to slower solar wind streams, modifying local plasma states of the streams.

<footnote n="1">¹School of Earth and Space Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, P. R. China</footnote>

<footnote n="2">²State Key Laboratory of Space Weather, National Space Science Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, P. R. China</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³Institute of Astronomy, National Central University, Taoyuan, 32001, Taiwan, R.O. China</footnote>

<footnote n="4">⁴GPP and EPSS, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA</footnote>

<footnote n="5">⁵Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA</footnote>

<footnote n="6">⁶Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-7450, USA</footnote>

<footnote n="7">⁷Physics Department, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-7300, USA</footnote>

<footnote n="8">⁸The Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College London, London, SW7 2AZ, UK</footnote>

<footnote n="10">¹⁰LPC2E, CNRS and University of Orléans, Orléans, France</footnote>

<footnote n="11">¹¹School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA</footnote>

<footnote n="12">¹²Solar System Exploration Division, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, 20771</footnote>

<footnote n="13">¹³Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80303, USA</footnote>
<figure><img src="image_3.png" /></figure>