Related papers: Past and Future Comet Missions
Asteroids and comets are remnants from the era of Solar System formation over 4.5 billion years ago, and therefore allow us to address two fundamental questions in astronomy: what was the nature of our protoplanetary disk, and how did the…
Comet Interceptor is an ESA science mission with payload contributions from ESA Member States and with an international participation by JAXA. It is the first mission that is being designed, built, and potentially launched before its target…
More than 30 years have passed since the Voyager 2 fly-bys of Uranus and Neptune. I discuss a range of lessons learned from Voyager, broadly grouped into process, planning, and people. In terms of process, we must be open to new concepts:…
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are among the most energetic events in the universe, offering insights into stellar collapse, extreme matter behavior, and cosmic evolution. The advent of multi-messenger astronomy, combining electromagnetic,…
The study of colliding galaxies has progressed rapidly in the last few years, driven by observations with powerful new ground and space-based instruments. These instruments have used for detailed studies of specific nearby systems,…
Background has played an important role in X-ray missions, limiting the exploitation of science data in several and sometimes unexpected ways. In this presentation I review past X-ray missions focusing on some important lessons we can learn…
We describe how the ESA Comet Interceptor mission, which is due to launch in 2028/29 to a yet-to-be-discovered target, can provide a conceptual basis for a future mission to visit an Interstellar Object. Comet Interceptor will wait in space…
In studies of the oldest solar system bodies - comets and asteroids - it is their fragments - meteoroids - that provide the most accessible planetary material for detailed laboratory analysis in the form of dust particles or meteorites.…
Amateur astronomers can make useful contributions to the study of comets. They add temporal coverage and multi-scale observations which can aid the study of fast-changing, and large-scale comet features. We document and review the amateur…
Comets are made of volatile and refractory material and naturally experience various degrees of sublimation as they orbit around the Sun. This gas release, accompanied by dust, represents what is traditionally described as activity.…
We discuss the connection between the chemistry of dense interstellar clouds and those characteristics of cometary matter that could be remnants of it. The chemical evolution observed to occur in molecular clouds is summarized and a model…
Topic of this work are comets, small and elusive objects that may hold great secrets about the origin of the Solar System and life on Earth, being among the most primitive objects. The method of investigation addressed in this work is the…
Recent years have seen dramatic progress in cosmology and particle astrophysics. So much so that anyone who dares to offer an overview would certainly risk him- or herself for being incomplete and biased at best, and even incorrect due to…
We review the status and future of direct searches for light dark matter. We start by answering the question: `Whatever happened to the light dark matter anomalies?' i.e. the fate of the potential dark matter signals observed by the CoGeNT,…
When viewed from Earth, most of what we observe of a comet is dust. The influence of solar radiation pressure on the trajectories of dust particles depends on their cross-section to mass ratio. Hence solar radiation pressure acts like a…
This paper presents the past evolution of the orbital elements of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, target of the Rosetta spacecraft. The gravitational orbit of the comet is affected by the sublimation of ice from the nucleus that triggers…
We summarize the collective knowledge of physical and surface properties of comet nuclei, focusing on those that are obtained from remote observations. We now have measurements or constraints on effective radius for over 200 comets,…
This chapter aims at providing the tools and knowledge to understand and model the plasma environment surrounding comets in the innermost part near the nucleus. In particular, our goal is to give an updated post-Rosetta view of this ionised…
The discovery and subsequent study of microquasars lead to major progress in our understanding of: 1) the nature of relativistic jets seen elsewhere in the universe, and 2) the connection between the accretion onto compact objects and 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…