@article{CiarnielloFulleRaponietal.2022,
  author    = {Ciarniello, Mauro and Fulle, Marco and Raponi, Andrea and Filacchione, Gianrico and Capaccioni, Fabrizio and Rotundi, Alessandra and Rinaldi, Giovanna and Formisano, Michelangelo and Magni, Gianfranco and Tosi, Federico and De Sanctis, Maria Cristina and Capria, Maria Teresa and Longobardo, Andrea and Beck, Pierre and Fornasier, Sonia and Kappel, David and Mennella, Vito and Mottola, Stefano and Rousseau, Batiste and Arnold, Gabriele},
  title     = {Macro and micro structures of pebble-made cometary nuclei reconciled by seasonal evolution},
  series = {Nature astronomy},
  volume    = {6},
  journal   = {Nature astronomy},
  number    = {5},
  publisher = {Nature Research},
  address   = {Berlin},
  issn      = {2397-3366},
  doi       = {10.1038/s41550-022-01625-y},
  pages     = {546 -- 553},
  year      = {2022},
  abstract  = {Comets evolve due to sublimation of ices embedded inside porous dust, triggering dust emission (that is, erosion) followed by mass loss, mass redistribution and surface modifications. Surface changes were revealed by the Deep Impact and Stardust NExT missions for comet 9P/Tempel 1 (ref.(1)), and a full inventory of the processes modifying cometary nuclei was provided by Rosetta while it escorted comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko for approximately two years(2-4). Such observations also showed puzzling water-ice-rich spots that stood out as patches optically brighter and spectrally bluer than the average cometary surfaces(5-9). These are up to tens of metres large and indicate macroscopic compositional dishomogeneities apparently in contrast with the structural homogeneity above centimetre scales of pebble-made nuclei(10). Here we show that the occurrence of blue patches determines the seasonal variability of the nucleus colour(4,11,12) and gives insight into the internal structure of comets. We define a new model that links the centimetre-sized pebbles composing the nucleus(10) and driving cometary activity(13,14) to metre-sized water-ice-enriched blocks embedded in a drier matrix. The emergence of blue patches is due to the matrix erosion driven by CO2-ice sublimation that exposes the water-ice-enriched blocks, which in turn are eroded by water-ice sublimation when exposed to sunlight. Our model explains the observed seasonal evolution of the nucleus and reconciles the available data at micro (sub-centimetre) and macro (metre) scales.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{TosiCapaccioniCapriaetal.2019,
  author    = {Tosi, Federico and Capaccioni, F. and Capria, M. T. and Mottola, Stefano and Zinzi, A. and Ciarniello, M. and Filacchione, G. and Hofstadter, M. and Fonti, S. and Formisano, M. and Kappel, David and K{\"u}hrt, E. and Leyrat, C. and Vincent, J-B and Arnold, G. and De Sanctis, M. C. and Longobardo, Andrea and Palomba, E. and Raponi, A. and Rousseau, Batiste and Schmitt, Bernard and Barucci, Maria Antonietta and Bellucci, Giancarlo and Benkhoff, Johannes and Bockelee-Morvan, D. and Cerroni, P. and Combe, J-Ph and Despan, D. and Erard, St{\´e}phane and Mancarella, F. and McCord, T. B. and Migliorini, Alessandra and Orofino, V and Piccioni, G.},
  title     = {The changing temperature of the nucleus of comet 67P induced by morphological and seasonal effects},
  series = {Nature astronomy},
  volume    = {3},
  journal   = {Nature astronomy},
  number    = {7},
  publisher = {Nature Publ. Group},
  address   = {London},
  issn      = {2397-3366},
  doi       = {10.1038/s41550-019-0740-0},
  pages     = {649 -- 658},
  year      = {2019},
  abstract  = {Knowledge of the surface temperature distribution on a comet's nucleus and its temporal evolution at different timescales is key to constraining its thermophysical properties and understanding the physical processes that take place at and below the surface. Here we report on time-resolved maps of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko retrieved on the basis of infrared data acquired by the Visible InfraRed and Thermal Imaging Spectrometer (VIRTIS) onboard the Rosetta orbiter in 2014, over a roughly two-month period in the pre-perihelion phase at heliocentric distances between 3.62 and 3.31 au from the Sun. We find that at a spatial resolution ≤15 m per pixel, the measured temperatures point out the major effect that self-heating, due to the complex shape of the nucleus, has on the diurnal temperature variation. The bilobate nucleus of comet 67P also induces daytime shadowing effects, which result in large thermal gradients. Over longer periods, VIRTIS-derived temperature values reveal seasonal changes driven by decreasing heliocentric distance combined with an increasing abundance of ice within the uppermost centimetre-thick layer, which implies the possibility of having a largely pristine nucleus interior already in the shallow subsurface},
  language  = {en}
}