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The Ice Chemistry in Comets and Planet-forming Disks: Statistical Comparison of CH3OH, H2CO, and NH3 Abundance Ratios
Ceccarelli, Cecilia; Codella, Claudio; Villanueva, Geronimo L. +5 more
Comets are frozen remnants of our solar system's formation, and comparing their chemical composition to that of planet-forming systems can reveal crucial insights about our origins, potentially answering one of the most challenging questions in planetary science, i.e., whether cometary material was mainly inherited from the protosolar nebula or re…
Diurnal Ejection of Boulder Clusters on Comet 67P Lasting beyond 3 au
Keller, Horst Uwe; Shi, Xian; Güttler, Carsten +6 more
Ejection of large boulder-like debris is a vigorous form of cometary activity that is unlikely induced by water ice out-gassing alone but rather associated with the sublimation of super-volatile ices. Though perceived on several comets, the actual pattern and mechanism of such activity are still unclear. Here we report on a specialized observation…
Evidence for Abiotic Dimethyl Sulfide in Cometary Matter
De Keyser, Johan; Altwegg, Kathrin; Hänni, Nora +5 more
Technological progress related to astronomical observatories such as the recently launched James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) allows searching for signs of life beyond our solar system, namely, in the form of unambiguous biosignature gases in exoplanetary atmospheres. The tentative assignment of a 1σ–2.4σ spectral feature observed with JWST in the …
A Broad Set of Solar and Cosmochemical Data Indicates High C-N-O Abundances for the Solar System
Lunine, Jonathan I.; Glein, Christopher R.; Truong, Ngoc
We examine the role of refractory organics as a major C carrier in the outer protosolar nebula and its implications for the compositions of large Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs) and CI chondrites. By utilizing Rosetta measurements of refractory organics in comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, we show that they would make up a large fraction of the protosol…
Interaction between a Coronal Mass Ejection and Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko
Gombosi, Tamas I.; Combi, Michael R.; Altwegg, Kathrin +6 more
The interaction between a coronal mass ejection (CME) and a comet has been observed several times by in situ observations from the Rosetta Plasma Consortium, which is designed to investigate the cometary magnetosphere of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko (CG). Goetz et al. reported a magnetic field of up to 300 nT measured in the inner coma, which i…