Comets And Their Origin (eBook)

Uwe J. Meierhenrich is full Professor of Chemistry and teaches at the University Nice Sophia Antipolis in France. Professor Meierhenrich studied chemistry at the Philipps University of Marburg, Germany. After completing his Ph.D. at the University of Bremen, he identified amino acids in artificial comets at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Katlenburg-Lindau and at the Centre de Biophysique Moléculaire in Orléans in preparation for the cometary Rosetta mission. Professor Meierhenrich is co-investigator of the cometary sampling and composition COSAC instrument onboard of Rosetta's lander Philae and his scientific research activities are dedicated to the chemistry of comets and the cometary mission Rosetta. He was awarded the Horst Pracejus Prize from the GDCh in 2011 for his work on chirality and enantioselective chromatography.

Foreword Professor Michael F. A'Hearn
Foreword Professor Gerhard A. Schwehm
Preface
Part I Comets and Their Origin
1. Introduction
2. The Formation of Comets
3. Astrochemistry: Water and Organic Molecules in Comets
4. The Asymmetry of Life
Part II The Rosetta Mission - Rendezvous With a Comet
5. The Rosetta Cometary Mission: Launch and Target Comet
6. On the Way to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko
7. Rosetta's Rendezvous With the Comet
8. Conclusions and Outlook