Related papers: Comets and meteor showers
Asteroids and other Small Solar System Bodies (SSSBs) are of high general and scientific interest in many aspects. The origin, formation, and evolution of our Solar System (and other planetary systems) can be better understood by analysing…
When extrasolar planets are observed to transit their parent stars, we are granted unprecedented access to their physical properties. It is only for transiting planets that we are permitted direct estimates of the planetary masses and…
This article relates two topics of central importance in modern astronomy - the discovery some fifteen years ago of the first planets around other stars (exoplanets), and the centuries-old problem of understanding the origin of our own…
The detection of exoplanets and accretion disks around newborn stars has spawned new ideas and models of how our Solar System formed and evolved. Meteorites as probes of geologic deep time can provide ground truth to these models. In…
Radio observations from decimetric to submillimetric wavelengths are now a basic tool for the investigation of comets. Spectroscopic observations allow us i) to monitor the gas production rate of the comets, by directly observing the water…
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…
Dust offers a unique probe of the interstellar medium (ISM) across multiple size, density, and temperature scales. Dust is detected in outflows of evolved stars, star-forming molecular clouds, planet-forming disks, and even in galaxies at…
In this chapter, we explore the origins of cometary material and discuss the clues cometary composition provides in the context of the origin of our solar system. The review focuses on both cometary refractory and volatile materials, which…
Small asteroids intersecting Earth's orbit can deliver extraterrestrial rocks to the Earth, called meteorites. This process is accompanied by a luminous phenomena in the atmosphere, called bolides or fireballs. Observations of bolides…
Understanding stellar evolution and its effect on planetary systems is crucial for correctly interpreting the chemical constraints of exo-planetary material that can be given to us by white dwarfs. This article will describe how asteroids,…
Astrophysical observations of the cosmos allow us to probe extreme physics and answer foundational questions on our universe. Modern astronomy is increasingly operating under a holistic approach, probing the same question with multiple…
This concept article discusses the possibilities for identifying sedimentary-origin meteorites. The paper concerns (i) the macroscopic candidate for sedimentary meteorite in the epicenter of the 1908 Tunguska catastrophe; (ii) potential…
Every second millions of small meteoroids enter the Earth's atmosphere producing dense plasmas. Radars easily detect these plasmas and researchers use this data to characterize both the meteoroids and the atmosphere. This paper develops a…
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…
The discovery of binaries in each of the major populations of minor bodies in the solar system is propelling a rapid growth of heretofore unattainable physical information. The availability of mass and density constraints for minor bodies…
Evidence for exocomets, icy bodies in extrasolar planetary systems, has rapidly increased over the past decade. Volatiles are detected through the gas that exocomets release as they collide and grind down within their natal belts, or as…
Although there is abundant and diverse observational evidence in support of white dwarf stars hosting planets or debris disks which form in the catastrophic destruction of various planetary bodies, the key processes that explain these…
A detailed understanding of the physics of star and planet formation requires study of individual objects as well as statistical assessment of global properties and evolutionary trends. Observational investigations of circumstellar material…
The data obtained in the recent Rosetta space mission to comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko have had a profound impact on the understanding of the nature of comets. In addition to revising the notions on the physical properties and structure…
Meteorites, and in particular primitive meteorites (chondrites), are irreplaceable probes of the solar protoplanetary disk. We review their essential properties and endeavour to place them in astrophysical context. The earliest solar system…