Icy Bodies of the Solar System (IAU S263)

IAU S263 provides a state-of-the-art review of icy bodies in the Solar System, emphasizing their importance across many disciplines.

Julio A. Fernandez (Edited by), Daniela Lazzaro (Edited by), Dina Prialnik (Edited by), Rita Schulz (Edited by)

9780521764889, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 29 April 2010

342 pages, 135 b/w illus. 35 tables
25.4 x 17.8 x 1.8 cm, 0.75 kg

'… provides an excellent start for new PhDs [and/or] postdocs who are inclined to start research on icy bodies in the solar system.' Contemporary Physics

IAU Symposium 263 provides a state-of-the-art review of icy bodies in the Solar System, a topic crucial to understanding processes involved in the Solar System's formation, the consequences for water on planets, and ultimately, the habitable zones around other stars. Ice-rich planetesimals which form beyond the snow line are discussed, using an interdisciplinary approach. The main topics covered include: accretion of icy grains in the protoplanetary disk, the long-period comet flux and the Oort cloud population, transfer mechanisms of bodies from their source regions to the Sun's neighborhood, the physics and dynamics of trans-Neptunian objects, transition objects (comets and asteroids), cryovolcanism and modeling the interiors of icy bodies, and a review of past, present and future space missions. This volume gives a broad overview of the importance of these bodies, from comets up to liquid water on terrestrial planets, and the formation of ices in the Solar System.

Preface
Overview
1. The icy planetesimals and accretion processes in the protoplanetary disk
2. Dynamical aspects of icy bodies. The Oort cloud
3. Icy satellites of the outer planets
4. Icy dwarf planets and TNOs
5. Transition objects
6. Physical processes in comets
7. Space missions to icy bodies: past, present and future
Author index
Object index
Subject index.

Subject Areas: Solar system: the Sun & planets [PGS]