Related papers: Comet 9P/Tempel 1: Interpretation with the Deep Im…

Dust continuum observation is one of the best methods to constrain the properties of protoplanetary disks. Recent theoretical studies have suggested that the dust scattering at the millimeter wavelength potentially reduces the observed…

Dark matter (DM) annihilations in the Galaxy may produce high energy neutrinos, which can be detected by the neutrino telescopes, for example IceCube, ANTARES and Super-Kamiokande. The neutrinos can also arise from hadronic interaction…

We present mid-IR spectro-interferometry of the Seyfert type 1 nucleus of NGC 3783. The dusty circumnuclear environment is spatially resolved and the wavelength dependence of the compact emission is discussed. The observations were carried…

On 3 July 2016, several instruments on board ESA's Rosetta spacecraft detected signs of an outburst event on comet 67P, at a heliocentric distance of 3.32 AU from the sun, outbound from perihelion. We here report on the inferred properties…

The dynamics of a rigid cometary nucleus is described by the evolutions of its center-of-mass and of its rotation state. Solar irradiation that reaches the surface of a cometary nucleus causes the sublimation of volatiles that form the coma…

We investigate the thermal evolution of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko's subsurface in the Seth_01 region, where active pits have been observed by the ESA/Rosetta mission. Our simulations show that clathrate destabilization and amorphous…

A new experimental set-up INterStellar Ice-Dust Experiment (INSIDE), was designed for studying cosmic grain analogues represented by ice-coated carbon- and silicate-based dust grains. In the new instrument, we can simulate physical and…

We report measurements of eight native (i.e., released directly from the comet nucleus) volatiles (H2O, HCN, CH4, C2H2, C2H6, CO, H2CO, and CH3OH) in comet 8P/Tuttle using NIRSPEC at Keck 2. Comet Tuttle reveals a truly unusual composition,…

During protoplanetary disk formation, dust grains located in the outer disk retain their pristine icy composition, while solids in the inner stellar-heated disk undergo volatile loss. This process may have left a fossil record in Solar…

We present IRTF/SpeX and NEOWISE observations of the dynamically new comet C/2013 US$_{10}$ (Catalina), hereafter US10, from 5.8 au inbound, to near perihelion at 1.3 au, and back to 5.0 au outbound. We detect water ice in the coma of US10,…

The Rosetta mission and its exquisite measurements have revived the debate on whether comets are pristine planetesimals or collisionally evolved objects. We investigate the collisional evolution experienced by the precursors of current…

Possibilities of measuring the size of nuclei of comets hidden by dust clouds are discussed. To this end, the dust cloud should be irradiated with a flow of rods accelerated in a linear mass accelerator to the velocity six kilometers per…

Comet 103P/Hartley 2 made a close approach to the Earth in October 2010. It was the target of an extensive observing campaign and was visited by the Deep Impact spacecraft (mission EPOXI). We present observations of HCN and CH3OH emission…

The presence of the dust in the circumnuclear region strongly affects our view of the nucleus itself. The effect is strong in type 2 objects but weaker effect is likely to be present in type 1 objects as well. In these objects a correction…

A thin, bright dust cloud, which is associated with the Rosetta mission target object (67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko), was observed after the 2002 perihelion passage. The neckline structure or dust trail nature of this cloud is controversial.…

We present a new set of high resolution dust extinction maps of the nearby and essentially starless Pipe Nebula molecular cloud. The maps were constructed from a concerted deep near-infrared imaging survey with the ESO-VLT, ESO-NTT, CAHA…

Recent UV-optical surveys have been successful in finding tidal disruption events (TDEs), in which a star is tidally disrupted by a supermassive black hole (BH). These TDEs release a huge amount of radiation energy ~ 10^51-52 erg into the…

Cosmic rays interacting in the solar atmosphere produce showers that result in a flux of high-energy neutrinos from the Sun. These form an irreducible background to indirect solar WIMP co-annihilation searches, which look for heavy dark…

Many chondrules are found to be surrounded by a fine grained rim. Supposedly, these rims were acquired from dust accreted to the chondrules in a protoplanetary disk. In numerical simulations we study the heat transfer in illuminated bare…

The inner regions of protoplanetary disks are host to the sublimation of dust grains, a process traditionally modeled using equilibrium thermodynamics. We demonstrate through ab-initio density functional theory (DFT) and kinetic Monte Carlo…