Atomic Oxygen in the Comae of Comets

Details Atomic Oxygen in the Comae of Comets Atomic Oxygen in the Comae of Comets

Oct 2007

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007dps....39.5309c&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #39, #53.09; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 39, p.521

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

Oxygen was one of the most common elements in solar nebula and thus should be a major constituent of cometary ices. 80% of cometary ices are H2O. The photodissociation of H2O forms atomic oxygen as one of its daughter and granddaughter products. However, atomic oxygen can also be a product of other oxygen-bearing parent molecules. The optical spectrum of comets has three atomic oxygen lines: the green O (1S) line at 5577.339Å and the red O (1D) doublet at 6300.304 and 6363.776Å. The red doublet is easily seen in cometary spectra because these lines occur in regions of the spectrum which are sparsely filled. However, the green line is rarely observed because it occurs in the middle of the strong C2 (1,2) band. With high-spectral resolution and the proper Doppler shift with respect to the telluric line, the green line can be cleanly observed or deblended. By studying the green line along with the red doublet, we can gain insight into the possible formation scenario of these lines and the relative importance of potential parents. We have used the 2DCoude spectrograph at McDonald Observatory to study the oxygen in comets. We have observations of approximately 10 comets over the past decade suitable for this study. In many cases, we have cleanly resolved the cometary green line from the telluric line and can derive line widths, an important constraint on the formation process. We will compare the intensities and the widths with the red lines observed simultaneously to understand the parent processes which form oxygen.
This work was supported by NASA Planetary Astronomy grant NNG04G162G.

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