Deep impact and sample return

Abstract

Returning a cold sample containing the ices from a cometary nucleus has long been an unachievable goal of cometary scientists. The results from the Deep Impact encounter with comet Tempel 1 suggest that the task is much easier than previously thought. Thus a cold sample return with ice becomes an achievable goal, at least from comet Tempel 1 and plausibly from other, active Jupiter-family comets. Copyright © The Society of Geomagnetism and Earth, Planetary and Space Sciences (SGEPSS); The Seismological Society of Japan; The Volcanological Society of Japan; The Geodetic Society of Japan; The Japanese Society for Planetary Sciences; TERRAPUB.