Discovery, observations and investigations of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in Kyiv

Rosetta, an European space vehicle 15 years in development, will head for the short period comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in February, 2004. In September 1969 S.Gerasimenko and myself went to the Alma-Ata Astrophysical Institute to conduct a survey of short period and new comets. Later that month, I examined an exposure of comet 32P/Comas Sola made on September 11.92 UT, 1969, and found a cometary object near the center of the plate which I assumed was the expected short period comet 32P/Comas Sola. Later explorations at Kyiv University revealed that this comet's position was 1.8degrees from the predicated calculations of comet 32P. It was a new comet. The comet had an apparent magnitude of 13 and a faint tail about 1 arcmin in length at position angle 280 degrees. On the basis of the observations of comet 67P obtained in Nizhny Arkhyz with the help of the 6- BTA reflector of the Special Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) some physical parameters of its comet plasma tail (coefficients of diffusion D-parallel to. D-perpendicular to and induction of magnetic field B) were determined (Jan. 12.105, 1983 UT: D-parallel to = 5.07 x 10(14) divided by1.21 x 10(15) cm(2)/s, D-perpendicular to = 5.73 x 10(13) divided by 1.37 x 10(14) cm(2)/s, B = 46 divided by 111 nT; Jan, 13.124, 1983 UT: D-parallel to = 4.67 x 10(14) divided by 1.14 x 10(15) cm(2)/s, D-perpendicular to = 4.30 x 10(13) divided by 1.05 x 10(14) cm(2)/s, B= 55 divided by 134 nT). Other results of exploration of comet 67P are discussed.