Looks like the September “issues” (vol. 533, issues #1-3) of Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society are all finished. Some picks of mine:
Carrascosca, H. Muñoz Caro, G. M. Martín-Deménech, R. et al. Formation and desorption of sulphur …
p. 967 stae1768
Humpage, A. Christou, A. A. A numerical study of near-Earth asteroid family orbital dispersion
p. 1412 stae1874
Williamson, H. N. Johansson, A. Canu-Blot, R. et al. Cometary ion drift energy and temperature at com…p. 1442 stae1883
Sulfur (to Americans, or sulphur, commonwealth-wise) is not rare in the universe. Among asteroids, it’s roughly second to oxygen as an anion, and in the comets, it’s not scarce either. The history of sulfur compounds (more reactive than oxides) is something we’re interested in, and inversely, can this history act as a tracer for asteroid/comet origins? And, of course, sulfur is one of the essential elements of life- the “S” in “CHONPS”. History, indeed.
Humpage et al. dive into dynamics- in arbitrary multi-body systems, most orbits aren’t stable. In the case of near-Earth objects (NEOs) particularly, they have a lifetime of x0,000- x0,000,000 Earth years. At some point, a NEO will be ejected from the Solar System by a planet, thrown into the Sun, or simply swallowed by impact. On shorter timescales, their orbits are ‘just’ perturbed, into a slightly different orbit. More time means more perturbations, which means more orbital difference. When an asteroid (or comet) is shattered, the pieces have some inherent dispersion, from the shattering event. The Yarkovsky effect adds a bit more push. Perturbations then keep things moving, at least on geologic timescales, not human ones. All told, how much dispersion are we talking? Humpage et al. are on it.
And finally, Williamson et al. consider the plasma results of Rosetta at 67P/Churuymov-Gerasimenko. Now, some papers have claimed that too much attention was paid to ionospherics and plasma physics, to the detriment of, you know… 67P/Chury’s solid nucleus morphology, its makeup, and its dust/gas activity. But Rosetta did what it did, and let’s mine the data. Comet ionospherics and plasma physics are relevant to other comets, Earth’s ionosphere, therefore Mars’ ionosphere, and on to Europa, Enceladus, etc. having dust/gas near them interacting with the solar wind and interplanetary magnetic field.