Monday, November 30, 2015 at 4:00 PM

JILA Auditorium

Simone Marchi, SWRI/Boulder

"On the origin of comets as revealed by the Rosetta mission"

Abstract:

A long-standing puzzle of planetary science is how comets form and evolve. A classical view holds that comets are among the most pristine objects in the Solar System, thus potentially harboring key signatures on how the planets came to be. In this view, comet evolution is rather uneventful.

But to what extent is this true? Can tiny balls of dirty ice just a few km across preserve processes that took place eons ago? And how humdrum is their evolution?

The European Rosetta mission orbiting comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko has recently acquired unprecedented data that can help unravel the complex formation and evolution of a cometary nucleus. I will present geomorphological data that seems to challenge the classical view of pristine objects, in favor of a more tumultuous evolution.

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