[BAA Comets] Subsurface of Comets: Paper published today

[Richard Miles]

The following paper appeared on Monthly Notices today (September 16):

"Modeling the evolution of a comet subsurface: Implications for 
67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko"

Aurelie Guilbert-Lepoutre, Eric D. Rosenberg, Dina Prialnik, Sebastien Besse

See:
http://mnras.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2016/09/16/mnras.stw2371.abstract

This paper appears to be unscientific in that the authors appear to have 
completely overlooked the work I have recently had published in Icarus on 
this subject, in particular:


Furthermore, Dina Prialnik, one of the authors, is a strong proponent of the 
amorphous-to-crystalline water ice transition and cites this mechanism as an 
explanation of the growth of circular depressions in the Imhotep region of 
Comet 67P. Many other researchers (including myself) have ruled out this old 
idea as a significant source of heat in the subsurface. In one of my papers, 
I specifically consider this otherwise perplexing discovery by Rosetta and 
come up with an eminently possible scenario where very significant amounts 
of heat are generated when methanol and ammonia vapour come into contact 
with water ice (via the exothermic release of enthalpy of solution) and 
point out that such a mechanism can readily explain sintering leading to the 
observed formation of depressions in smooth regions of Comet 67P and their 
subsequent growth.

Clearly the scientific community is having difficulty in accepting new ideas 
surrounding this topic!

Richard Miles