Planetary and Space Science 118 (2015) 1–7
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Planetary and Space Science
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Editorial Asteroids, Comets, Meteors, and their Interrelations, Part I: Editorial review
1. Introduction than 40 countries at the conference (Fig. 1). The ACM 2014 Book of Abstracts included over 600 abstracts (Muinonen et al., 2014). It is widely agreed that the small Solar System bodies are a key Plenary, Parallel, and Poster Sessions were organized around to understanding the formation and evolution of the Solar System, numerous topical themes. The Plenary Sessions focused on the carrying signals from pre-solar times. Unveiling the evolution of Rosetta mission, comet ISON, and the Chelyabinsk meteor on the Solar System helps research on the evolution of extrasolar Monday, with asteroid formation, main-belt dynamical evolution, planetary systems. Societally, small bodies will be important the Dawn mission, and Chariklo's rings featured on Tuesday. future resources of minerals. The near-Earth population of small Thursday's Plenary Session featured the Gaia mission, both overall bodies continues to pose an impact hazard, whether it be small and as a Solar System observatory, as well as state-of-the-art pieces of falling meteorites or larger asteroids or cometary nuclei meteor observing and the New Horizons mission to Pluto, whereas capable of causing global environmental effects. the Friday Plenary focused on the past Hayabusa, future Haya- In Section 2, we begin by a review of the Asteroids, Comets, busa2, past Chang'e-2, and future OSIRIS-REx asteroid missions. Meteors 2014 conference in Helsinki. In Section 3, the advances The Parallel and Poster Sessions included the following themes. documented in the peer-reviewed papers included in the present Sessions assessing all populations of small bodies included Planetary and Space Science Special Issue topically entitled Aster- oids, Comets, Meteors, and their Interrelations, Part I are reviewed. Surveys of small bodies The editorial review is completed by conclusions and future pro- Impact hazard spects in Section 4. Missions Absorption, Scattering, and Emission Extrasolar connection. 2. Asteroids, Comets, Meteors 2014 Comets were featured in the sessions entitled 2.1. Overall review Rosetta and Comet 67/P Churyumov–Gerasimenko The Asteroids, Comets, Meteors conference series constitutes Comet ISON the leading international series in the field of small Solar System Specific Comets bodies. The first three conferences took place in Uppsala, Sweden Comet surfaces and interiors in 1983, 1985, and 1989, followed by the conferences in Flagstaff, Comet formation and evolution. Arizona, USA in 1991, Belgirate, Italy in 1993, Paris, France in 1996, Ithaca, New York, USA in 1999, Berlin, Germany in 2002, Rio de For meteoroids, meteors, and meteorites, there were sessions Janeiro, Brazil in 2005, Baltimore, Maryland, USA in 2008, Niigata, on Japan in 2012, and Helsinki, Finland in 2014. The ACM 2014 conference was organized by the Department of Chelyabinsk meteor, meteorites, and active asteroids Physics, University of Helsinki at the Marina Congress Centre in Meteoroids and meteorites Katajanokka, Helsinki (see Appendix A for the members of the Meteor surveys Scientific and Local Organizing Committees). The conference was Meteoroids, dust, and exospheres. opened at the Helsinki Observatory, spiced with the sporadic rain of hydrometeors and cold weather. The conference itself was Asteroid research was scrutinized in the sessions entitled organized as follows: a plenary session gathered the attendees together each morning, except for Wednesday where the after- Asteroid spin, size, and shape noon excursions and evening dinner resulted in an exceptional Ceres and Lutetia morning program of parallel sessions. The morning plenaries were Vesta followed by a coffee break and a poster session that ended in the Dynamics and populations lunch break. The afternoons were filled with parallel sessions Asteroid surfaces except for Friday, where there was a plenary session with invited Asteroid collisions and families reviews on meteors, comets, and asteroids, followed by the closing Asteroid interiors of the conference. There were almost 500 attendees from more Specific asteroids http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pss.2015.11.001 0032-0633/& 2015 Published by Elsevier Ltd. 2 Editorial / Planetary and Space Science 118 (2015) 1–7