Comets: Tracers of Solar System Formation and Evolution—Celebrating the 20th Anniversary of Rosetta Mission Launch

A special issue of Universe (ISSN 2218-1997). This special issue belongs to the section "Planetary Sciences".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 September 2024 | Viewed by 1675

Special Issue Editor


E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Trieste, Via Tiepolo 11, I-34143 Trieste, Italy
Interests: numerical modeling in different astrophysical contexts: dust dynamics in cometary atmosphere, protoplanetary discs and dust plume dynamics after impact on an asteroid, MHD instabilities at planetary magnetospheres; magnetoconvection simulations of sunspots; modeling star–planet interactions and habitability of planetary systems

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The Rosetta findings have brought cometary science to a new level. The interpretation of the acquired data has driven a large-scale revision of our understanding of comet formation and is also leading us to reconsider several established concepts related to the formation and evolution of the Solar System. Moreover, this has broader implications regarding comet composition and formation, among other phenomena, in fields including astrophysics, astrochemistry and astrobiology. This Special Issue aims to gather current advances in various aspects of cometary science together with planetary formation theories. The Issue will focus on reviewing state-of-the-art cometary on the nuclei formation paradigm based on the Rosetta results while also taking into account data accumulated through studies over the past 20 years from observation, laboratory investigations and modeling results. This unique and timely collection of papers on the role of comets in the Solar System’s formation and evolution will be critical for identifying new scientific goals for the post-Rosetta era and future cometary space missions (e.g., Comet Interceptor).

Furthermore, recent high-resolution ALMA observations of protoplanetary disks have raised interest in the study of solid bodies in disks at different scales, from sub-micrometric grains up to solid bodies hundreds of meters in size, for which dynamic evolution is governed by the interaction between the gas and dust in the disk. Such observations shed light on the formation and migration scenarios of comets in planetary systems.

This Special Issue welcomes papers presenting new results on:

  • The temporal evolution of the Solar System:
    • From pre-solar clouds to dust and icy grains (cometary ices in the protoplanetary discs, dust grains formation and growth, formation of the Solar System);
    • Mass transport and mixing within the Solar System(radial mixing and planet migration); 
    • Formation and dynamics of pebbles (inward-drifting pebbles feed the growth of terrestrial planets and Rosetta results on pebble structure of comets);
    • Planetesimal formation/evolution from planetesimals to comets (collisional and dynamical evolution, streaming instabilities, rubble piles, comets formation, formation of the comets reservoirs).
  • Cometary activity, composition and structure of cometary nuclei—observations, laboratory investigations and modeling;
  • Protoplanetary disk observation studies (e.g., ALMA) on cometary formation and migration in planetary systems.

Review papers on these topics are also welcome.

Dr. Stavro Ivanovski
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Universe is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • comets
  • protoplanetary disks
  • space missions/Rosetta
  • planetary formation
  • dust and pebble dynamics
  • cometary ices

Published Papers (1 paper)

Order results
Result details
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Review

15 pages, 1618 KiB  
Review
Main Results from the ISSI International Team “Characterization of 67P Cometary Activity”
by Andrea Longobardo, Minjae Kim, Boris Pestoni, Mauro Ciarniello, Giovanna Rinaldi, Stavro Ivanovski, Fabrizio Dirri, Marco Fulle, Vincenzo Della Corte, Alessandra Rotundi and Martin Rubin
Universe 2023, 9(10), 446; https://doi.org/10.3390/universe9100446 - 11 Oct 2023
Viewed by 1163
Abstract
The ESA/Rosetta mission accompanied the Jupiter Family Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and provided a huge amount of data which are providing important results about cometary activity mechanisms. We summarize the results obtained within the ISSI International Team Characterization of 67P cometary activity, which studied [...] Read more.
The ESA/Rosetta mission accompanied the Jupiter Family Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and provided a huge amount of data which are providing important results about cometary activity mechanisms. We summarize the results obtained within the ISSI International Team Characterization of 67P cometary activity, which studied dust and gas ejection in different stages of the comet’s orbit, by means of a data fusion between instruments onboard the Rosetta orbiter, i.e., the OSIRIS camera, the VIRTIS imaging spectrometer, the GIADA dust detector, the MIDAS atomic force microscope, the COSIMA dust mass spectrometer, and the ROSINA gas mass spectrometer, supported by numerical models and experimental work. The team reconstructed the motion of the dust particles ejected from the comet surface, finding a correlation between dust ejection and solar illumination as well as larger occurrence of fluffy (pristine) particles in less processed and more pebble-rich terrains. Dust activity is larger in ice-rich terrains, indicating that water sublimation is the dominant activity process during the perihelion phase. The comparison of dust fluxes of different particle size suggests a link between dust morphology and ejection speed, generation of micrometric dust from fragmentation of millimetric dust, and homogeneity of physical properties of compact dust particles across the 67P surface. The comparison of fluxes of refractory and ice particles suggests the occurrence of a small amount of ice in fluffy particles, which is released when they are fragmented. A new model of cometary activity has been finally developed, according to which the comet nucleus includes Water-Ice-Enriched Blocks (WEBs), that, when exposed by CO2 activity, are the main sources of water sublimation and dust ejection. Full article
Show Figures

Figure 1

Back to TopTop