This book reviews the approach to the kinetic simulation of nonequilib- rium processes in the planetary atmospheres which the authors developed and dealt with since the 1970s. The results of this study, which are focused on the nonequilibrium collisional processes in the atmospheres of planets and comets, are thoroughly reviewed and discussed. Many specific problems of atmospheric modeling, involving numerical evaluation of aeronomic pro- cesses, are addressed and compared with the available experimental data. The kinetic approach proved to be especially effective to model the in- teraction...

Space exploration and advanced astronomy have dramatically expanded our knowledge of outer space and made it possible to study the indepth mechanisms underlying various natural phenomena caused by complex interaction of physical-chemical and dynamical processes in the universe. Huge breakthroughs in astrophysics and the planetary s- ences have led to increasingly complicated models of such media as giant molecular clouds giving birth to stars, protoplanetary accretion disks associated with the solar system's formation, planetary atmospheres and circumplanetary space. The creation of these...

The exploration of our Solar System is rapidly growing in importance as a scientific discipline. During the last decades, great progress has been achieved as the result of space missions to planets and small bodies - as- teroids and comets - and improved remote-sensing methods, as well as due to refined techniques of laboratory measurements and a rapid progress in theoretical studies, involving the development of various astrophysical and geophysical models. These models are based, in particular, on the approach of comparative planetology becoming a powerful tool in revealing evolu- tionary...