This review presents our understanding of cometary dust at the end of 2017. For decades, insight about the dust ejected by nuclei of comets had stemmed from remote observations from Earth or Earth’s orbit, and from flybys, including the samples of dust returned to Earth for laboratory studies by the Stardust return capsule. The long-duration Rosetta mission has recently provided a huge and unique amount of data, obtained using numerous instruments, including innovative dust instruments, over a wide range of distances from the Sun and from the nucleus. The diverse approaches available to study dust in comets, together with the related theoretical and experimental studies, provide evidence of the composition and physical properties of dust particles, e.g., the presence of a large fraction of carbon in macromolecules, and of aggregates on a wide range of scales. The results have opened vivid discussions on the variety of dust-release processes and on the diversity of dust properties in comets, as well as on the formation of cometary dust, and on its presence in the near-Earth interplanetary medium. These discussions stress the significance of future explorations as a way to decipher the formation and evolution of our Solar System.

中文翻译：

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彗星尘埃

这篇综述介绍了我们在 2017 年底对彗星尘埃的了解。几十年来，对彗星核喷射尘埃的了解源于对地球或地球轨道的远程观测以及飞越，包括返回地球的尘埃样本星尘返回舱的实验室研究。长期的罗塞塔任务最近提供了大量独特的数据，这些数据是使用多种仪器（包括创新的尘埃仪器）在距太阳和原子核的广泛距离内获得的。可用于研究彗星尘埃的多种方法，加上相关的理论和实验研究，提供了尘埃颗粒的组成和物理性质的证据，例如，大分子中存在大部分碳，以及广泛存在的聚集体。尺度范围。研究结果引发了关于尘埃释放过程的多样性、彗星中尘埃特性的多样性、彗星尘埃的形成及其在近地行星际介质中的存在的生动讨论。这些讨论强调了未来探索作为破译太阳系形成和演化的一种方式的重要性。