Related papers: Formation of Comets
In this chapter we review the astrophysical origins of Earth's carbon, starting from the products of the Big Bang and culminating with the Earth's formation. We review the measured compositions of different primitive objects including…
Chemical and chronological information preserved in meteorites permits the reconstruction of events and processes in the solar nebula from the formation of the first solids to the accretion of planetary bodies and their subsequent…
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…
This text was originally written to accompany a series of lectures that I gave at the `35th Saas-Fee advanced course' in Switzerland and at the Institute for Astronomy of the University of Hawaii. It reviews my current understanding of the…
Comets display with decreasing solar distance an increased emission of gas and dust particles, leading to the formation of the coma and tail. Spacecraft missions provide insight in the temporal and spatial variations of the dust and gas…
The past century of interstellar dust has brought us from first ignoring it to finding that it plays an important role in the evolution of galaxies. Current observational results in our galaxy provide a complex physical and chemical…
In situ research on cometary chemistry began when measurements from the Giotto mission at comet 1P/Halley revealed the presence of complex organics in the coma. New telescopes and space missions have provided detailed remote and in situ…
Chondritic meteorites constitute the most ancient rock record available in the laboratory to study the formation of the solar system and its planets. Detailed investigations of their mineralogy, petrography, chemistry and isotopic…
This paper is the result of the International Cometary Workshop, held in Toulouse, France in April 2014, where the participants came together to assess our knowledge of comets prior to the ESA Rosetta Mission. In this paper, we look at the…
Comets are considered to be some of the most pristine and unprocessed solar system objects accessible to in-situ exploration. Investigating their molecular and elemental composition takes us on a journey back to the early period of our…
Comets are thought to preserve almost pristine dust particles, thus providing a unique sample of the properties of the early solar nebula. The microscopic properties of this dust played a key part in particle aggregation during the…
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…
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…
Comets hold the key to the understanding of our solar system, its formation and its evolution, and to the fundamental plasma processes at work both in it and beyond it. A comet nucleus emits gas as it is heated by the sunlight. The gas…
After 25 years of laboratory research on protoplanetary dust agglomeration, a consistent picture of the various processes that involve colliding dust aggregates has emerged. Besides sticking, bouncing and fragmentation, other effects, like,…
Over the past decade, progress in observational capabilities, combined with theoretical advancements, have transformed our comprehension of the physics and chemistry during planet formation. Despite these important steps forward, open…
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 are classified from their orbital characteristics into two separate classes: nearly-isotropic, mainly long-period comets and ecliptic, short-period comets. Members from the former class are coming from the Oort cloud. Those of the…
In this review presented at the Royal Society meeting, "Cometary Science After Rosetta", I present an overview of studies of small solar system objects that exhibit properties of both asteroids and comets (with a focus on so-called active…
The first stage of planet formation is the accumulation of dust and ice grains into mm-cm-sized pebbles. These pebbles can clump together through the streaming instability and form gravitationally bound pebble 'clouds'. Pebbles inside such…