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Macro and micro structures of pebble-made cometary nuclei reconciled by seasonal evolution

Longobardo, Andrea; Mottola, Stefano; Kappel, David +17 more

Comets evolve due to sublimation of ices embedded inside porous dust, triggering dust emission (that is, erosion) followed by mass loss, mass redistribution and surface modifications. Surface changes were revealed by the Deep Impact and Stardust NExT missions for comet 9P/Tempel 1 (ref. ¹), and a full inventory of the processes modifyin…

Dual storage and release of molecular oxygen in comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko

Mousis, Olivier; Trattner, Karlheinz J.; Lunine, Jonathan I. +7 more

One of the biggest surprises of the Rosetta mission was the detection of O₂ in the coma of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in remarkably high abundances. The measured levels of O₂ in the coma are generally assumed to reflect the overall abundance and chemical origin of cometary O₂ in the nucleus. Along with its strong as…