Dust–Gas Interrelations In Comets: Observations And Theory

Abstract

The development of the expanding atmospherefrom the evaporating cometary nucleus has traditionallyfocused on observing and modeling the separatedevelopment of two distinct components, gas and dust,which are coupled dynamically with one another atdistances out to a few tens of cometary radii. In the lastdecade or so, however, direct evidence from observationsand suggestions from theory suggest that the dusty-gascoma is a tightly coupled system where material is transferredbetween the solid and gaseous phase as an importantintegral part of the basic development of the coma.