Related papers: The Rosetta mission orbiter Science overview the c…

The chemical evolution of a star- and planet-forming system begins in the prestellar phase and proceeds across the subsequent evolutionary phases. The chemical trail from cores to protoplanetary disks to planetary embryos can be studied by…

The coma of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko has been probed by the Rosetta spacecraft and shows a variety of different molecules. The ROSINA COmet Pressure Sensor and the Double Focusing Mass Spectrometer provide in-situ densities for many…

We summarize the collective knowledge of physical and surface properties of comet nuclei, focusing on those that are obtained from remote observations. We now have measurements or constraints on effective radius for over 200 comets,…

Questions regarding how primordial or pristine the comets of the solar system are have been an ongoing controversy. In this review, we describe comets' physical evolution from dust and ice grains in the solar nebula to the contemporary…

We report on the detection of three icy cavities on the nucleus of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. They were identified on high-resolution anaglyphs built from images acquired by the OSIRIS instrument aboard the Rosetta spacecraft on 2016…

The Rosetta mission of the European Space Agency has been orbiting the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (67P) since August 2014 and is now in its escort phase. A large complement of scientific experiments designed to complete the most…

Cometary activity affects the orbital motion and rotation state due to sublimation induced forces. The availability of precise rotation-axis orientation and position data from the Rosetta mission allows one to accurately determine the…

The Langmuir Probe instrument on Rosetta monitored the photoelectron emission cur- rent of the probes during the Rosetta mission at comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, in essence acting as a photodiode monitoring the solar ultraviolet…

Solar wind charge-changing reactions are of paramount importance to the physico-chemistry of the atmosphere of a comet because they mass-load the solar wind through an effective conversion of fast, light solar wind ions into slow, heavy…

The space mission CoRoT (COnvection, ROtation and planetary Transits) will offer the possibility to detect extrasolar planets by means of the transit method. The satellite will observe about 60000 targets in the range 11.0<V<16.0, located…

A moon or natural satellite is a celestial body that orbits a planetary body such as a planet, dwarf planet, or an asteroid. Scientists seek understanding the origin and evolution of our solar system by studying moons of these bodies.…

A series of astronomical observations obtained over the period 1986 to 2018 supports the idea that life is a cosmic rather than a purely terrestrial or planetary phenomenon. These include (1) the detection of biologically relevant molecules…

The Rosetta spacecraft accompanied the comet 67P/C-G for nearly 2 years, collecting valuable data on the neutral and ion composition of the coma. The Rosetta Plasma Consortium (RPC) provided continuous measurements of the in situ plasma…

This white paper proposes that AMBITION, a Comet Nucleus Sample Return mission, be a cornerstone of ESA's Voyage 2050 programme. We summarise some of the most important questions still open in cometary science after the successes of the…

The Alice ultraviolet spectrograph on the European Space Agency Rosetta spacecraft observed comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in its orbit around the Sun for just over two years. Alice observations taken in 2015 October, two months after…

A comet ionospheric model assuming the plasma to move radially outward with the same bulk speed as the neutral gas and not being subject to severe reduction through dissociative recombination has previously been tested in a series of case…

Thanks to Rosetta orbiter's and Philae lander's data our knowledge of cometary nuclei composition has experienced a great advancement. The properties of 67P/CG nucleus are discussed and compared with other comets explored in the past by…

The European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft, en route to a 2014 encounter with comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, made a gravity assist swing-by of Mars on 25 February 2007, closest approach being at 01:54UT. The Alice instrument on board…

The recently discovered first high velocity hyperbolic objects passing through the Solar System, 1I/'Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov, have raised the question about near term missions to Interstellar Objects. In situ spacecraft exploration of these…

We describe Castalia, a proposed mission to rendezvous with a Main Belt Comet (MBC), 133P/Elst-Pizarro. MBCs are a recently discovered population of apparently icy bodies within the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, which may…