An Ultraviolet Spectrometer for the Rosetta Orbiter

Alice Science Goals

Alice will obtain 700-2050 A spectra of the Rosetta mission asteroid flyby targets and comet rendezvous target in order to study their surfaces and atmospheres. In particular, at the mission's main target, comet 67 P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, Alice will seek to measure the abundances of the major parent molecules, noble gases, key ions, and various minor species; in addition, Alice will study the comet's far-UV surface reflectance and the UV photometric properties of dust grains in the coma.

The specific goals of the Alice Science Team are:

To measure the highly volatile molecular species, particularly including the noble gases (Ar, Ne and He) and the molecules CO, CO₂, and N₂; and also the most abundant atoms (H, C, N, O and S)
To map the distribution of the outgassing around the nuclear surface and as a function of the local insolation
To map the distribution of water in absorption
To map the nuclear spectrum in UV