Related papers: Local manifestations of cometary activity

Exocomets are small bodies releasing gas and dust which orbit stars other than the Sun. Their existence was first inferred from the detection of variable absorption features in stellar spectra in the late 1980s using spectroscopy. More…

Comets, asteroids, and other small bodies are thought to be remnants of the original planetesimal population of the Solar System. As such, their physical, chemical, and isotopic properties hold crucial details on how and where they formed…

The Rosetta mission provided detailed observations of the growth of a cavity in the solar wind around comet 67P/CG. As the comet approached the Sun, the plasma of cometary origin grew enough in density and size to present an obstacle to the…

We report on the first major temporal morphological changes observed on the surface of the nucleus of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, in the smooth terrains of the Imhotep region. We use images of the OSIRIS cameras onboard Rosetta to…

Whenever a freely spinning body is found in a complex rotational state, this means that either the body is a recent victim of an impact or a tidal interaction, or is a fragment of a recently disrupted progenitor. Another factor (relevant…

Context. The first long-term in-situ observation of the plasma environment in the vicinity of a comet, as provided by the European Rosetta spacecraft. Aims. Here we offer characterisation of the solar wind flow near…

We present observations of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko acquired in support of the $Rosetta$ mission. We obtained usable data on 68 nights from 2014 September until 2016 May, with data acquired regularly whenever the comet was…

Context. Comets are primitive objects, remnants of the volatile-rich planetesimals from which the solar system condensed. Knowing their structure and composition is thus crucial for the understanding of our origins. After the successful…

The results of the photometric observations of comet 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 1 are analyzed. The comet demonstrates substantial activity at heliocentric distances larger than 5 AU, outside the water ice sublimation zone. The CCD images of…

Cometary dust particles are best preserved remnants of the matter present at the onset of the formation of the Solar System. Space missions, telescopic observations and laboratory analyses advanced the knowledge on the properties of…

The ESA Rosetta spacecraft, currently orbiting around comet 67P, has already provided in situ measurements of the dust grain properties from several instruments, particularly OSIRIS and GIADA. We propose adding value to those measurements…

Comet nuclei in the outer Solar system are constantly irradiated by cosmic rays at low temperatures. Accumulated high concentrations of radicals can undergo fast recombination with significant heating of cometary surface layers. We present…

Sublimative outgassing of comets produces torques that alter the rotation state of their nuclei. Recently, parameterized sublimative torque models have been developed to study rotation state changes of individual comet nuclei and…

The Rosetta mission to comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko has provided new data to better understand what comets are made of. The weak tensile strength of the cometary surface materials suggests that the comet is a hierarchical dust aggregate…

Far ultraviolet observations of comets yield information about the energetic processes that dissociate the sublimated gases from their primitive surfaces. Understanding which emission processes are dominant, their effects on the observed…

Comets contain abundant amounts of organic and inorganic species. Many of the volatile molecules in comets have also been observed in the interstellar medium and some of them even with similar relative abundances, indicating formation under…

Solar wind charge-changing reactions are of paramount importance to the physico-chemistry of the atmosphere of a comet. The ESA/Rosetta mission to comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (67P) provides a unique opportunity to study charge-changing…

Earth occasionally crosses the debris streams produced by comets and other active bodies in our solar system. These manifest meteor showers that provide an opportunity to explore these bodies without a need to visit them in-situ.…

Optical properties are required for the correct understanding and modelling of protoplanetary and debris discs. By assuming that comets are the most pristine bodies in the solar system, our goal is to derive optical constants of real…

The study of comets affords a unique window into the birth, infancy, and subsequent history of the solar system. There is strong evidence that comets incorporated pristine interstellar material as well as processed nebular matter, providing…