The GDR wishes to pay a tribute to Anny-Chantal Levasseur-Regourd, a great figure of planetology who passed away in the middle of the summer, at the age of 78.

Anny-Chantal was interested in the work of the GDR since its creation and had been a member during the 1st contract (LATMOS team).

Her research work focused on interplanetary particles, some of which are carbonaceous.

The results of his first works on the interplanetary medium and the zodiacal light, gave the first global map in intensity and polarization of the zodiacal light, which constrained the local physical properties of interplanetary particles. Her work has also focused on the study of the inner regions of cometary chevels by polarimetric imaging.

She has participated in numerous space missions to study comets and their dust, including the Giotto mission in 1986 (Halley’s comet) and Rosetta (Churyumov-Gerasimenko comet) between 2014 and 2017.

She continued her work on simulations of light scattering by irregular particles (compact or flaky) using laboratory experiments on the ground and in microgravity (PROGRA2) and numerical simulations for various types of particles mainly fractal are employed. She participated in the CODAG experiment which shows the agglomeration of silica spheres into fractal structures during a rocket flight in microgravity. These studies were continued by numerical simulations of the multi-wavelength polarization curves in particular of the comets Halley and Hale-Bopp and of the particles of the interplanetary medium. They showed the necessity of organic particles in the dust, result verified by Rosetta on comet 67P.

Her work, both theoretical and experimental, has made her one of the most renowned specialists in the world of cometary physics.

Other tributes are visible on the website of the Société Astronomique de France and at LATMOS.