Other
Scientific paper
Sep 2008
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008dps....40.1607p&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #40, #16.07; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 40, p.412
Other
Scientific paper
Understanding the abundances and distributions of CO in cometary comae is important both for understanding comet chemistry and the roles comets have played in the development of the solar system. While CO is one of the more abundant species in comets, its abundance varies widely across the comet population and has no obvious correlation with other known properties. However, understanding CO is complicated by several factors. CO is not only released from the nucleus but is also a photolytic daughter or granddaughter product of several other species, including CO2, H2CO, and CH3OH. Additionally, it serves as both a reactant and a product in chemical reactions involving abundant cometary species and their photolytic products.
In this study, the impact of multiple photochemical processes and two-body chemical reactions are modeled within a variety of cases designed to examine the effects of nuclear chemical composition and coma physics on the gas-phase development of CO in the coma. Our results suggest that the dominant mechanisms of CO production in the coma are H2CO and CH3OH photolysis. CO2 photolysis does not contribute significantly to inner coma CO abundances, but its long photodissociation lifetime and reactivity with metastable-state atoms combine to make it a contributor to the development of CO at large cometocentric distances. Our results also suggest that the reported extended sources of CO in comets Halley and Hale-Bopp would most likely have to come from grains or another large molecule that photodissociates quickly and does not react significantly with other major species in the coma chemical network.
A'Hearn Michael F.
Pierce Donna M.
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