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Short-period Jupiter family comets after Stardust

Burchell, Mark J., Kearsley, Anton T. (2009) Short-period Jupiter family comets after Stardust. Planetary and Space Science, 57 (10). pp. 1146-1161. ISSN 0032-0633. (doi:10.1016/j.pss.2008.07.019) (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:37225)

The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided.
Official URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pss.2008.07.019

Abstract

The NASA Stardust mission has provided for laboratory study an extensive data set of cometary dust of known provenance (from comet 81P/Wild 2) yielding detailed insights into the composition of the comet. Combined with the results of data from other missions to short-period Jupiter family comets (JFC), this has greatly deepened the understanding of such objects. If depressions on the surface of comet 81P/Wild 2 are all taken as evidence of impact cratering, their number suggests a long occupancy in the outer region of the Solar System. The dust from comet 81P/Wild 2 has been shown to be heavily deficient in pre-Solar grains and rich in materials formed at high temperatures in the inner Solar System. Although it is too early to know if this is typical of JFC, it does argue for rapid and thorough mixing of materials in the disk on timescales related to comet formation, and may also suggest outward migration of small icy bodies after their formation. Thus, instead of providing mainly new knowledge of the pre-Solar materials expected to be rich in comets, Stardust and comet 81P/Wild 2 have instead focussed attention on large-scale transport processes during the critical period when cometary parent bodies were forming in the early Solar System.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1016/j.pss.2008.07.019
Uncontrolled keywords: Jupiter family comets; Stardust; 81P/Wild-2
Subjects: Q Science > QB Astronomy
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Natural Sciences > Physics and Astronomy
Depositing User: Mark Burchell
Date Deposited: 05 Dec 2013 12:58 UTC
Last Modified: 16 Nov 2021 10:13 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/37225 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

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