Related papers: Local manifestations of cometary activity
Before Rosetta, the space missions Giotto and Stardust shaped our view on cometary dust, supported by plentiful data from Earth based observations and interplanetary dust particles collected in the Earth's atmosphere. The Rosetta mission at…
The chemical composition of comets is frequently assumed to be directly provided by the observations of the abundances of volatile molecules in the coma. The present work aims to determine the relationship between the chemical composition…
Remote investigations of the ancient solar system matter has been traditionally carried out through the observations of long-period (LP) comets that are less affected by solar irradiation than the short-period counterparts orbiting much…
Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko was selected in 2003 as the new target of the Rosetta mission. It has since been the subject of a detailed campaign of observations to characterise its nucleus and activity. Here we present previously…
Dust jets, i.e. fuzzy collimated streams of cometary material arising from the nucleus, have been observed in-situ on all comets since the Giotto mission flew by comet 1P/Halley in 1986. Yet their formation mechanism remains unknown.…
Explaining the unexpected presence of dune-like patterns at the surface of the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko requires conceptual and quantitative advances in the understanding of surface and outgassing processes. We show here that vapor…
The composition of cometary ices provides key information on the thermal and chemical properties of the outer parts of the protoplanetary disk where they formed 4.6 Gy ago. This chapter reviews our knowledge of composition of cometary comae…
Recent observations show activity in long-period comet C/2017 K2 at heliocentric distances beyond the orbit of Uranus. With this as motivation, we constructed a simple model that takes a detailed account of gas transport modes and simulates…
We analyze the physical properties and dynamical origin of a curved jet of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko that was observed repeatedly in several nucleus rotations starting on May 30 and persisting until early August, 2015. We simulated…
Periodic comets of different dynamical groups with orbits at 2 - 5 AU still occasionally active. The observed dust activity of such objects can be connected with processes of water ice sublimation (MBCs) or crystallization of amorphous…
Here we review some of the major findings of the mass spectrometer suite ROSINA on board of ESA's Rosetta spacecraft to comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. For more than 2 years, ROSINA continuously measured the composition of the gases…
The physical properties of cometary nuclei observed today relate to their complex history and help to constrain their formation and evolution. In this article, we review some of the main physical properties of cometary nuclei and focus in…
Comets provide unique information about the physical and chemical properties of the environment in which the Solar system was formed. Understanding how cometary dust and ice evolve under the effect of sunlight is essential for constraining…
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…
Dust transport and deposition behind larger boulders on the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (67P/C-G) have been observed by the Rosetta mission. We present a mechanism for dust transport vectors based on a homogenous surface activity model…
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…
We investigate the ability of a simultaneous fitting of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko's non-gravitational forces, torques and total water-outgassing rate, as observed by Rosetta, to constrain complex thermophysical models of cometary…
Starting from several monthly data sets of Rosetta's COmetary Pressure Sensor we reconstruct the gas density in the coma around comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The underlying inverse gas model is constructed by fitting ten thousands of…
Comets are pristine remnants of the Solar system, composed of dust and ice. They remain inactive and undetectable for most of their orbit due to low temperatures. However, as they approach the Sun, volatile materials sublimate, expelling…
We present Rosetta RPC case study from four events at various radial distance, phase angle and local time from autumn 2015, just after perihelion of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Pulse like (high amplitude, up to minutes in time)…