Origin of the ices agglomerated by Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko

Creators: Mousis, Olivier; Lunine, Jonathan I.; Luspay-Kuti, Adrienn; Guillot, Tristan; Marty, Bernard; Wurz, Peter; Ali-Dib, Mohamad; Altwegg, Kathrin; Hässig, Myrtha; Rubin, Martin; Vernazza, Pierre; Waite, Jack H.

Others:: Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille (LAM) ; Aix Marseille Université (AMU)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales [Toulouse] (CNES)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS); Department of Astronomy [Ithaca] ; Cornell University [New York]; Southwest Research Institute [San Antonio] (SwRI); Joseph Louis LAGRANGE (LAGRANGE) ; Université Nice Sophia Antipolis (1965 - 2019) (UNS) ; COMUE Université Côte d'Azur (2015-2019) (COMUE UCA)-COMUE Université Côte d'Azur (2015-2019) (COMUE UCA)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur ; COMUE Université Côte d'Azur (2015-2019) (COMUE UCA)-Université Côte d'Azur (UCA)-Université Côte d'Azur (UCA)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS); Centre de Recherches Pétrographiques et Géochimiques (CRPG) ; Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université de Lorraine (UL)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS); Physikalisches Institut [Bern] ; Universität Bern [Bern] (UNIBE); Center for Space and Habitability (CSH) ; University of Bern; Univers, Transport, Interfaces, Nanostructures, Atmosphère et environnement, Molécules (UMR 6213) (UTINAM) ; Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université de Franche-Comté (UFC) ; Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté [COMUE] (UBFC)-Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté [COMUE] (UBFC); Space Science Division [San Antonio] ; Southwest Research Institute [San Antonio] (SwRI); American Astronomical Society

Description

The nature of the icy material accreted by comets during their formation in the outer regions of the protosolar nebula is a major open question in planetary science. Some scenarios of comet formation predict that these bodies agglomerated from clathrates crystallized in the protosolar nebula. Concurrently, alternative scenarios suggest that comets accreted amorphous ice originating from the interstellar cloud. Here we show that the recent N2/CO and Ar/CO ratios measured in the coma of the Jupiter family comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko by the ROSINA instrument aboard the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft can help disentangling between these two scenarios.

Abstract

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Origin of the ices agglomerated by Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko

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Abstract

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