Scientific Issues and Detection Schemes on the Dust Characteristics Of Main Belt Comets

The origin and formation of Main Belt Comets (MBCs), the characteristics of non-active period MBCs, as well as the relationships between MBCs and other comets and asteroids are studied. It emphasizes the need to develop an in-situ detection method capable of covering the characteristics of dust particles. In light of the upcoming Chinese Tianwen-2 mission, the authors propose an integrated composite detection method for non-contact measurement based on the analysis of the relationship between the characteristics of dust in MBCs and scientific problems. It can extract MBCs’ ejected dust particle size, velocity, momentum, morphology, and flux without changing the original characteristics of the dust. This design has been applied in the engineering practice of the Tianwen-2 mission.