... trace their heritage to the interstellar medium from which the protosolar nebula eventually emerged. The most recent cometary space mission, Rosetta , carried instruments designed to characterize, in unprecedented detail, the organic species in comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko (67P). Rosetta...

... et al. 2011 ). The Rosetta mission also observed strong dichotomies in the relative ratios of CO 2 /H 2 O between the northern and southern hemispheres of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, as well as changing mixing ratios of less abundant molecules, as seen from in situ near-IR measurements...

...Figure 7.2 Exploration of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko by the ESA-NASA Rosetta probe. (a) 67P/G-C upon arrival. (b) Artist’s view of the Rosetta spacecraft, with insert showing the double focusing mass spectrometer (DFMS) of the ROSINA instrument that analysed volatiles released...

.... Detailed study of actual cometary bodies, what they are made of and how they evolve, requires close-up investigation by spacecraft. Prior to the investigation of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko by the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission (Grady et al. 2018 this issue), there had been close...

...F igure 5 An agglomerate dust particle from comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, as collected by COSIMA (cometary secondary ion mass analyzer). The image was obtained using grazing illumination from the right. The length of the shadows indicates that the altitude above the substrate reaches about...

... of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, observed in close proximity by the Rosetta mission (see Grady et al. 2018 this issue). Once they had formed, some comets were scattered during close encounters with the giant planets into more eccentric and long-period orbits. This initially just extended...

... thousand grains of dust from comet Wild 2 to Earth? We collectively shared the despair when communication was lost from Rosetta 's Philae lander on comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, and the excitement about the unparalleled wealth of information sent back during its 70 hours of life on the comet's...

... ( 2018 ) The Rosetta Mission and the chemistry of organic species in Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko . Elements 14 : 95 – 100 Hartogh P and 12 coauthors ( 2011 ) Ocean-like water in the Jupiter-family comet 103P/Hartley 2 . Nature 478 : 218 – 220 Hills JG ( 1981...

... internally. The issue is unresolved, but recent data may support the latter hypothesis. That is, the upper limit on Titan’s atmospheric 84 Kr/CH 4 ratio (<10 −6 ) from the Huygens probe is much lower than the value (~8 × 10 −5 ) determined at comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko by the European Space...

... the University of Akron. REFERENCES Anders E ( 1989 ) Pre-biotic organic matter from comets and asteroids . Nature 342 : 255 - 257 Altwegg K 31 coauthors ( 2016 ) Prebiotic chemicals—amino acid and phosphorus—in the coma of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko . Science Advances...

... Rosetta mission to Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Hayabusa return mission to the “S-type” asteroid Itokawa, and NASA's Dawn mission to asteroids Vesta and Ceres) can provide additional data about samples that date from the very earliest times in our solar...

... similarities to carbonaceous chondrites. The weak, porous structures of chondritic-porous IDPs are consistent with the very low strength of cometary meteors. Indeed, chondritic-porous IDPs are remarkably similar in appearance to particle aggregates from the comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, which...

...Figure 8 Examples of extraterrestrial case hardening. ( A ) Image of the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko (view is ~900 m across). While dust appears to generate smooth surfaces, unknown agents have created induration features, as evidenced by eroded edges of the crust (arrowed). Image...