Related papers: Cryogenic Cometary Sample Return
Recent observations indicate that >99% of the small bodies in the Solar System reside in its outer reaches --- in the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud. Kuiper Belt bodies are probably the best preserved representatives of the icy planetesimals…
This white paper advocates for the inclusion of small, captured Outer Solar system objects, found in the Ice Giant region in the next Decadal Survey. These objects include the Trojans and Irregular satellite populations of Uranus and…
The origins of the elements and isotopes of cosmic material is a critical aspect of understanding the evolution of the universe. Nucleosynthesis typically requires physical conditions of high temperatures and densities. These are found in…
We summarize the comet science provided by surveys. This includes surveys where the detections of comets are an advantageous benefit but were not part of the survey\'s original intent, as well as some pointed surveys where comet science was…
In the outer solar system beyond Jupiter, water ice is a dominant component of planetary bodies, and most solid objects in this region are classified as icy bodies. Icy bodies display a remarkable diversity of geological, geophysical, and…
Examination of ambient thermodynamic conditions suggest that clathrate hydrates could exist in the martian permafrost, on the surface and in the interior of Titan, as well as in other icy satellites. Clathrate hydrates probably formed in a…
The release of volatiles from comets is usually from direct sublimation of ices on the nucleus, but for very or hyper-active comets other sources have to be considered to account for the total production rates. In this work, we present new…
Comets are remnants of the icy planetesimals that formed beyond the ice line in the Solar Nebula. Growing from micrometre-sized dust and ice particles to km-sized objects is, however, difficult because of growth barriers and time scale…
Comets have similar compositions to interstellar medium ices, suggesting at least some of their molecules maybe inherited from an earlier stage of evolution. To investigate the degree to which this might have occurred we compare the…
Cool a piece of the Sun to 1000 K at one millibar pressure to yield a mineral assemblage consistent with those found in the most primitive meteorites. This is an equilibrium or fractional condensation experiment simulated by calculations…
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…
Icy grain mantles are the main reservoir of the volatile elements that link chemical processes in dark, interstellar clouds with the formation of planets and composition of their atmospheres. The initial ice composition is set in the cold,…
An outstanding question of astrobiology is the link between the chemical composition of planets, comets, and other solar system bodies and the molecules formed in the interstellar medium. Understanding the chemical and physical evolution of…
Remote and in-situ observations of cometary gases have revealed the presence of a wealth of complex organic molecules, including carbon chains, alcohols, imines and the amino acid glycine. Such chemical complexity in cometary material…
Complex organic molecules serve as indicators of molecular diversity. Their detection on comets, planets, and moons has prompted inquiries into their origins, particularly the conditions conducive to their formation. One hypothesis suggests…
Earth's volatile elements (H, C, and N) are essential to maintaining habitable conditions for metazoans and simpler life forms. However, identifying the sources (comets, meteorites, and trapped nebular gas) that supplied volatiles to Earth…
NASA's Stardust mission returned rocky material from the coma of comet 81P/Wild 2 (pronounced "Vilt 2") to Earth for laboratory study on January 15, 2006. Comet Wild 2 contains volatile ices and likely accreted beyond the orbit of Neptune.…
C/2002 CE$_{10}$ is an object in a retrograde elliptical orbit with Tisserand parameter $-0.853$ indicating a likely origin in the Oort Cloud. It appears to be a rather inactive comet since no coma and only a very weak tail was detected…
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…
Uranus and Neptune, and their diverse satellite and ring systems, represent the least explored environments of our Solar System, and yet may provide the archetype for the most common outcome of planetary formation throughout our galaxy. Ice…