Related papers: The Case for Non-Cryogenic Comet Nucleus Sample Re…
Comets are primitive objects that formed in the protoplanetary disk, and have been largely preserved over the history of the Solar System. However, they are not pristine, and surfaces of cometary nuclei do evolve. In order to understand the…
It has been suggested that shock waves in the solar nebula formed the high temperature materials observed in meteorites and comets. It is shown that the temperatures at the inner rim of the solar nebula could have been high enough over a…
The problem of the origin of the elements is a fundamental one in astronomy and one that has many open questions. Prominent examples include (1) the nature of Type Ia supernovae and the timescale of their contributions; (2) the…
Understanding the phases of water ice that were present in the solar nebula has implications for understanding cometary and planetary compositions as well as internal evolution of these bodies. Here we show that amorphous ice formed more…
While purely philosophical in the early times, and still very speculative at the beginning of the twentieth century, Cosmology has gradually entered into the realm of experimental science over the past eighty years. It has raised some…
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 nature of the icy material accreted by comets during their formation in the outer regions of the protosolar nebula is a major open question in planetary science. Some scenarios of comet formation predict that these bodies agglomerated…
Remote observations of comets, especially using high spectral resolution millimeter spectroscopy, have enabled the detection of over 25 molecules in comets for the last twenty years. Among the molecules identified at radio wavelengths,…
Geochemical and astronomical evidence demonstrate that planet formation occurred in two spatially and temporally separated reservoirs. The origin of this dichotomy is unknown. We use numerical models to investigate how the evolution of the…
Ice naturally forms in the disordered or ``amorphous'' state when accreted from vapor at temperatures and pressures found in the interstellar medium and in the frigid, low density outer regions of the Sun's protoplanetary disk. It is…
Planets are formed inside disks around young stars. The gas, dust, and ice in these natal disks are the building materials of planets, and therefore their compositions fundamentally shape the final chemical compositions of planets. In this…
Our Solar System includes the Sun, eight major planets and their moons, along with numerous asteroids, comets, and dust particles, collectively known as the small Solar System bodies. Small bodies are relics from the birth of the Solar…
To understand the chemical origin of the Solar system, the chemical evolution along the star/planet formation is a key issue. Extensive observational studies have demonstrated a chemical diversity in young low-mass protostellar sources so…
Various problems of the formation and evolution of planetary systems are studied. Most of the studies are devoted to the Solar System. The collapse of the presolar cloud and the accumulation of planets are studied. The author considers the…
The chemical elements are created in nuclear fusion processes in the hot and dense cores of stars. The energy generated through nucleosynthesis allows stars to shine for billions of years. When these stars explode as massive supernovae, the…
The Hadean, once thought to be uninhabitable and tumultuous, has more recently been recontextualized as a clement time in which oceans, land, and life likely appeared on Earth. This non-exhaustive chapter follows multiple threads from…
The "dark age" of the Universe is generally pointed out as the period between the recombination epoch and the horizon of current observations (z=5-6). The arrow of time in the cosmic history describes the progression from simplicity to…
Explaining the origin of life requires us to explain how self-replication arises. To be specific, how can a self-replicating entity develop spontaneously from a chemical reaction system in which no reaction is self-replicating? Previously…
We review the possible mechanisms for the generation of cosmological magnetic fields, discuss their evolution in an expanding Universe filled with the cosmic plasma and provide a critical review of the literature on the subject. We put…
Organic compounds are ubiquitous in space: they are found in diffuse clouds, in the envelopes of evolved stars, in dense star-forming regions, in protoplanetary disks, in comets, on the surfaces of minor planets, and in meteorites and…