Related papers: The carbon monoxide-rich interstellar comet 2I/Bor…
Interstellar objects provide the only directly observable samples of icy planetesimals formed around other stars, and can therefore provide insight into the diversity of physical and chemical conditions occurring during exoplanet formation.…
Interstellar objects provide a unique opportunity to further our understanding of the planetary formation process by studying in detail material formed around another star. Their ices contain precious clues about the environment and…
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…
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…
2I/Borisov is the second interstellar object (ISO) after 'Oumuamua (Meech et al. 2017), but differs from 'Oumuamua drastically with its extensive cometary activity. A key ingredient to understand the nature of this comet is its size.…
3I/ATLAS is the third interstellar comet identified as passing through the Solar System. Its high outgassing activity and favourable perihelion passage on October 29, 2025 UT provided an excellent opportunity to investigate the composition…
ESA's Rosetta spacecraft at comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (67P) was the first mission that accompanied a comet over a substantial fraction of its orbit. On board was the ROSINA mass spectrometer suite to measure the local densities of the…
Comets provide a valuable window into the chemical and physical conditions at the time of their formation in the young solar system. We seek insights into where and when these objects formed by comparing the range of abundances observed for…
A rich inventory of complex organic molecules (COMs) has been observed in high abundances in the gas phase toward Class 0 protostars. These molecules are suggested to be formed in ices and sublimate in the warm inner envelope close to the…
Comets, during their journeys into the inner solar system, deliver volatile gases, organics, and particulates into their comae that provide crucial information for assessing the physico-chemical conditions in the outer disk from which they…
The interstellar medium contains dust and gas, in which at high densities and cold conditions molecules can proliferate. Interstellar Complex Organic Molecules (iCOMs) are C-bearing species that contain at least six atoms. As they are…
Thanks to the advent of sensitive and broad bandwidth instrumentation, complex organic molecules (COMs) have been found in a wide variety of interstellar environments, not only in our Galaxy but also in external galaxies up to a redshift of…
Interstellar objects provide a direct window into the environmental conditions around stars other than the Sun. The recent discovery of 3I/ATLAS, a new interstellar comet, offers a unique opportunity to investigate the physical and chemical…
Comets, relics from the early solar system, consist of dust and ice. The ice sublimates as comets approach the Sun, ejecting dust from their nuclei seen as activity. Different volatiles sublimate at different Sun-comet distances and eject…
We report a survey of molecular emission from cometary volatiles using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) toward interstellar object 3I/ATLAS carried out on UT 2025 December 22 and 23 at a heliocentric distance ($r_H$) of $2.37-2.41$ au.…
After a quarter century since the detection of the last interstellar carboxylic acid, acetic acid (CH$_3$COOH), we report the discovery of a new one, the cis-trans form of carbonic acid (HOCOOH), toward the Galactic Center molecular cloud…
Starless molecular cores are natural laboratories for interstellar molecular chemistry research. The chemistry of ices in such objects was investigated with a three-phase (gas, surface, and mantle) model. We considered the center part of…
During the formation of our solar system, a large number of planetesimals were ejected into interstellar space by gravitational encounters with the planets. Debris disks observations and numerical simulations indicate that many other…
The relation between ice composition in the nucleus of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on the one hand and relative abundances of volatiles in the coma on the other hand is important for the interpretation of density measurements in the…
Comet C/2016 R2 PanSTARRS (hereafter C/2016 R2) presents an unusually high N2/CO abundance ratio, as well as a heavy depletion in H2O, making it the only known comet of its kind. Understanding its dynamical history is therefore of essential…