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Comets, Mars and Venus

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Handbook of X-ray and Gamma-ray Astrophysics

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Abstract

This chapter deals with recent insights gained by X-ray observations of comets, Mars and Venus. It starts with the discovery of cometary X-ray emission, which has revealed the importance of the process of charge exchange. This process will then be described before proceeding to X-ray observations of comets, where observational aspects and data analysis methods will be covered and results will be presented. The next section deals with Mars, starting with a comparison with comets and explaining why its X-ray emission contains scattered solar X-rays as an additional component. Then specific Mars observations will be presented together with the results which they have provided, before the section about Mars will conclude with a short summary of the scientific value of such observations. The last section will be devoted to Venus, starting with a comparison with Mars, providing details about the observational challenges, and presenting results.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik, Garching, Germany

    Konrad Dennerl

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  1. Konrad Dennerl
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Correspondence to Konrad Dennerl .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

    Cosimo Bambi

  2. Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Tuebingen, Tuebingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

    Andrea Santangelo

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Dennerl, K. (2024). Comets, Mars and Venus. In: Bambi, C., Santangelo, A. (eds) Handbook of X-ray and Gamma-ray Astrophysics. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-6960-7_72

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