Abstract
<p>The last thirty years of cosmochemistry and planetary science have shown that one major Solar System reservoir is vastly undersampled in the available suite of extra-terrestrial materials, namely small bodies that formed in the outer Solar System (>10AU). Because various dynamical evolutionary processes have modified their initial orbits (e.g., giant planet migration, resonances), these objects can be found today across the entire Solar System as P/D near-Earth and main-belt asteroids, Jupiter and Neptune Trojans, comets, Centaurs, and small (diameter <200km) trans-Neptunian objects. This reservoir is of tremendous interest, as it is recognized as the least processed since the dawn of the Solar System and thus the closest to the starting materials from which the Solar System formed. Some of the next major breakthroughs in planetary science will come from studying outer Solar System samples (volatiles and refractory constituents) in the laboratory. Yet, this can only be achieved by an L-class mission that<br />directly collects and returns to Earth materials from this reservoir. It is thus not surprising that two white papers advocating a sample return<br />mission of a primitive Solar System small body (ideally a comet) were submitted to ESA in response to its call for ideas for future L-class<br />missions in the 2035-2050 time frame. I will present an overview of the ideas listed in one of these two white papers and discuss how such a<br />mission would be complementary to current and future ground based observations of primitive Solar System small bodies.</p>
Highlights
Constraints on the formation of a planetary system can be derived from observations of interstellar clouds, star-forming regions, and exoplanets, enabling the characterization of the diversity of ingredients, processes, and products of stellar formation
The last thirty years of cosmochemistry and planetary science have shown that one major Solar System reservoir is vastly undersampled in the available suite of extra-terrestrial materials, namely small bodies that formed in the outer Solar System (>10 AU)
Because various dynamical evolutionary processes have modified their initial orbits, these objects can be found today across the entire Solar System as P/D near-Earth and main-belt asteroids, Jupiter and Neptune Trojans, comets, Centaurs, and small trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs). This reservoir is of tremendous interest, as it is recognized as the least processed since the dawn of the Solar System and the closest to the starting materials from which the Solar System formed
Summary
Constraints on the formation of a planetary system can be derived from observations of interstellar clouds, star-forming regions, and exoplanets, enabling the characterization of the diversity of ingredients, processes, and products of stellar formation. Most of them are delivered naturally to Earth and occur in the form of rocks (meteorites), fragments (micrometeorites), or dust (interplanetary dust particles, IDPs) This suite of samples is among the most studied in Earth and Planetary Science laboratories and has enabled us to probe some of the constituents of the solar accretion disc (chondrules, refractory inclusions, matrix, macromolecular organics), to examine in detail the first steps of planetesimal formation (agglomeration of dust, impacts, differentiation) and to determine the timing of different processes (absolute and relative). Because various dynamical evolutionary processes have modified their initial orbits (e.g., giant planet migration, resonances), these objects can be found today across the entire Solar System as P/D near-Earth and main-belt asteroids, Jupiter and Neptune Trojans, comets, Centaurs, and small (diameter < 200 km) trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) This reservoir is of tremendous interest, as it is recognized as the least processed since the dawn of the Solar System and the closest to the starting materials from which the Solar System formed. Comets and P/D main-belt asteroids including main-belt comets would appear as the most accessible and scientifically valuable targets, with comets being our preferred targets because of their activity that can be used to characterize the volatiles and because their surface should be more “primitive” due to the involved erosion processes
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