Search Publications
Dust Environment Model of the Interstellar Comet 2I/Borisov
Fulle, M.; Cremonese, G.; Lazzarin, M. +27 more
2I/Borisov is the first interstellar comet discovered on 2019 August 30, and it soon showed a coma and a dust tail. This study reports the results of images obtained at the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo telescope, on La Palma - Canary Islands, in 2019 November and December. The images have been obtained with the R filter in order to apply our dust …
The Effect of Cosmic Rays on Cometary Nuclei. I. Dose Deposition
Gunell, H.; Rubin, M.; De Keyser, J. +9 more
Comets are small bodies thought to contain the most pristine material in the solar system. However, since their formation ≈4.5 Gy ago, they have been altered by different processes. While not exposed to much electromagnetic radiation, they experience intense particle radiation. Galactic cosmic rays and solar energetic particles have a broad spectr…
A Fully Kinetic Perspective of Electron Acceleration around a Weakly Outgassing Comet
Henri, Pierre; Lapenta, Giovanni; Divin, Andrey +4 more
The cometary mission Rosetta has shown the presence of higher-than-expected suprathermal electron fluxes. In this study, using 3D fully kinetic electromagnetic simulations of the interaction of the solar wind with a comet, we constrain the kinetic mechanism that is responsible for the bulk electron energization that creates the suprathermal distri…
Hydroxylated Mg-rich Amorphous Silicates: A New Component of the 3.2 µm Absorption Band of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko
Carlson, R. W.; Kappel, D.; Pommerol, A. +13 more
The VIRTIS imaging spectrometer on board Rosetta has shown that the nucleus surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (67P/CG) is characterized by a broad absorption band at around 3.2 µm. The feature is ubiquitous across the surface and its attribution to (a) specific material(s) has been challenging. In the present Letter, we report an ex…
A Mechanistic Study on the Formation of Acetic Acid (CH3COOH) in Polar Interstellar Analog Ices Exploiting Photoionization Reflectron Time-of-flight Mass Spectrometry
Kleimeier, N. Fabian; Eckhardt, André K.; Kaiser, Ralf I.
Acetic acid (CH3COOH) is considered a key molecule in the formation of the simplest amino acid, glycine, and consequently peptides. It is ubiquitous in the interstellar medium and has been detected toward hot cores, in the coma of comets, and on the surface of the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko by the Rosetta mission. Here we present t…
Xenon Isotopes Identify Large-scale Nucleosynthetic Heterogeneities across the Solar System
Avice, G.; Moreira, M.; Gilmour, J. D.
Nucleosynthetic isotopic anomalies in meteorites and planetary objects contribute to our understanding of the formation of the solar system. Isotope systematics of chondrites demonstrate the existence of a physical separation between isotopic reservoirs in the solar system. The isotopic composition of atmospheric xenon (Xe) indicates that its prog…
The Dynamics of the Magnetic-field-free Cavity around Comets
Nemeth, Z.
The diamagnetic cavity is the innermost region of the magnetosphere of an active comet, from which the magnetic field is expelled by the outflowing matter. This phenomenon, first detected around comet 1P/Halley, was extensively studied recently by the Rosetta comet chaser mission. Rosetta observed a surprisingly large diamagnetic cavity around com…