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Scientists Still Don’t Know the Origin of Comets.
Tuesday, June 2, 2015 7:26
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According to Science Magazine:
“Cometary nuclei imaged from flyby and rendezvous spacecraft show common evidence of layered structures and bi-lobed shapes. But how and when these features formed is much debated, with distinct implications for solar system formation, dynamics, and geology.” Quoted from http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2015/05/27/science.aaa4747
According to news report by NewScientist:
“We (the authors) still don’t know which one of the two scenarios (note 1) is the more probable.” Quoted from the last third paragraph at
Note 1: Scenario 1: “One is that two chunks of ice and dirt, the building blocks of comets, merged early in the solar system’s history.”
Scenario 2: “The alternative scenario is that the two lobes were part of a single larger body that shattered in a violent collision, after which the two chunks found each other again and stuck together.”
Scenario 2: “The alternative scenario is that the two lobes were part of a single larger body that shattered in a violent collision, after which the two chunks found each other again and stuck together.”
Quoted from the fourth and fifth paragraphs of the above-mentioned news article.
The research article is freely available at http://arxiv.org/pdf/1505.07021v1.pdf
