Characteristics and physico-chemical evolution of cometary nuclei : modeling and experimental study - implications and objectives for the Rosetta mission

Séminaire IPAG de Ulysse Marboeuf (IPAG), jeudi 23 février 2012 à 11h00, IPAG seminar room

Comets are the most primitive bodies in the solar system. Their study is important to understanding the conditions of formation of the solar system and determine its initial physico-chemical composition. However, many unknowns remain on the nature of these objects and experimental and theoretical studies must be conducted, in addition to the observations, to deduce their original physico-chemical composition. At the seminar, I will present the scientific objectives of the study of comets, and the theoretical and experimental works that I currently carry out at IPAG. I will discuss the research projects underway and future, including those under the Rosetta mission, the space mission exploration of a comet in 2014 whose objective is to determine the physico-chemical nature of these objects. My work is interested in the volatile phase of comets (gas and ices) and aims to model and reproduce experimentally the physico-chemical processes taking place inside these objects. The final objective of this work is to constrain the processes of formation and evolution of the cometary environment through depth interpretation of spatial data of the Rosetta spacecraft.