The Depleted Organic Composition of Comet C/2000 WM1 (LINEAR) and the Search for Heterogeneity in the Cometary Nucleus

Details The Depleted Organic Composition of Comet C/2000 WM1 (LINEAR) and the Search for Heterogeneity in the Cometary Nucleus The Depleted Organic Composition of Comet C/2000 WM1 (LINEAR) and the Search for Heterogeneity in the Cometary Nucleus

Sep 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008dps....40.1627r&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #40, #16.27; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 40, p.416

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

1

Scientific paper

Cometary nuclei are remnants from the Solar System formation, and originated between 5 and 40 AU from the young Sun. Their compositional diversity holds important clues to the formation and evolution of the Solar System, and the origin of water and prebiotic organics on the Earth. We present high-resolution infrared spectra of the Oort cloud comet C/2000 WM1 (LINEAR), acquired on 23-25 Nov. 2001 with the Near Infrared Echelle Spectrograph on the Keck II telescope. We extracted rotational temperatures and production rates for the following parent volatiles: H2O, HCN, CH4, C2H2, C2H6, H2CO, CH3OH and CO (among these, the symmetric hydrocarbons are uniquely sampled in the infrared). They show that C/2000 WM1 is moderately depleted in HCN, CH4 and CH3OH, and significantly depleted in C2H2 and CO. The relative abundances for each species agree for the three dates (23, 24 and 25 Nov.), consistent with homogenous composition in the active region(s) of this cometary nucleus. We will report the rotational temperatures, water production rates, and relative abundances of organic volatiles, with respect to H2O. WM1 is only the third comet identified as "organics-depleted", and thus its characterization provides an important addition to the emerging taxonomy for comets based on chemical composition.
We gratefully acknowledge support from NASA Planetary Astronomy Program to MJM, MAD, and from NSF-RUI to KMS.

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