Since several decades, comets have been considered as key witnesses of solar system formation. Their nature has been explored using the modern arsenal of Earth- and space-based observations, and they hold a central place as dynamical arbiters of the planetary system in the new paradigm of solar system evolution known as the Nice Model. Thus, they have the potential to test the various ideas, using the detailed data recently gathered by the ESA/Rosetta mission. This requires an understanding of their origin and evolution, which form the subject of the present book. All the relevant issues are covered, describing both the background and the current frontiers of research
Readership: University students and researchers interested in astrophysics.
Hans Rickman (b. 1949 in Stockholm, Sweden) graduated with a PhD in astronomy in 1977 at Stockholm University. His research concerned the transfer of comets in the solar system by chaotic orbital dynamics and this has remained a major topic during his whole career. He retired in 2014 as a professor of astronomy at Uppsala University and, in 2015, from a professorship at the PAN Space Research Center in Warsaw. For the latter part of his career he had a strong involvement in the ESA Rosetta mission and, in particular, the OSIRIS scientific imaging system. He also served for the International Astronomical Union as General Secretary from 2000 to 2003.
Rickman is a member of the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences and the International Academy of Astronautics. In 2012 he received the David Bates Medal of the European Geophysical Union for his contributions to the study of comet nuclei and their outgassing. Asteroid (3692) Rickman was named in his honor.