Cometary Science: Insights from 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko

by Nicolas Thomas (Editor), Björn Davidsson (Editor), Laurent Jorda (Editor)

This book gives a status report on where we stand today in studies of cometary nuclei and their immediate environment. The papers were derived from a Horizon 2020 project called MiARD (Multi-instrument Analysis of Rosetta Data), which was designed to use multiple datasets from the Rosetta mission to comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko to place further constraints on the properties of the nucleus of the comet and its immediate environment. The individual chapters are the result of a significant effort by leading researchers to establish clear statements on what we know from current cometary data. Based on a workshop held in 2018 at the International Space Sciences Institute, the book focuses on the nucleus itself and the relationship between the surface properties and the observed outgassing. Additionally, it makes a first critical assessment of the Rosetta dataset, establishing what would be an appropriate next step in cometary research. Previously published in Space Science Reviews in the Topical Collection " Post 67P / Churyumov-Gerasimenko Perspectives”

427 pages, Hardcover

Published April 16, 2021

About the author

Nicolas Thomas gained his PhD at the University of York in 1986 and, after working at the European Space Research and Technology Centre in Noordwijk and the Max-Planck-Inst. für Aeronomie in Katlenburg-Lindau, he became professor of experimental physics at the University of Bern in 2003. He has worked on numerous space missions connected to comets such as Giotto, the Giotto Extended Mission and NASA’s Deep Space 1 as well as several other missions connected to Solar System targets. He leads a research group that studies cometary dusty-gas dynamics, polar processes on Mars and atmosphere-magnetosphere interactions at Io, through modelling, data analysis and laboratory experiment. He is PI of the CaSSIS instrument for ESA’s ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter and of the Comet Camera (CoCa) on ESA’s new cometary mission, Comet Interceptor.