Team identifies clathrate ices in comet 67P

For decades, scientists have agreed that comets are mostly water ice, but what kind of ice--amorphous or crystalline--is still up for debate. Looking at data obtained by ESA's Rosetta spacecraft in the atmosphere, or coma, around comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, scientists at Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) are seeing evidence of a crystalline form of ice called clathrates.