Detections of Ethane (C2H6), Methane (CH4), and Carbon Monoxide (CO) in the Coma of Comet C/2006 W3 (Christensen) at 3.25 AU from The Sun

Details Detections of Ethane (C2H6), Methane (CH4), and Carbon Monoxide (CO) in the Coma of Comet C/2006 W3 (Christensen) at 3.25 AU from The Sun Detections of Ethane (C2H6), Methane (CH4), and Carbon Monoxide (CO) in the Coma of Comet C/2006 W3 (Christensen) at 3.25 AU from The Sun

Oct 2010

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010dps....42.2821b&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #42, #28.21; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 42, p.963

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

Scientific paper

We report high-resolution spectroscopic observations of comet C/2006 W3 (Christensen) using the Cryogenic Infrared Echelle Spectrograph at the Very Large Telescope Observatory atop Cerro Paranal, Chile. We detected the "hypervolatiles” C2H6, CH4, and CO in the coma observed at heliocentric distance of 3.25 AU. We also detected CO at 4.03 AU from the Sun. This presentation will report spatial profiles, rotational temperature, and production rates of the three detected species. We compare our results with the radio detection of CO (Bockelee-Morvan et al. A&A, 518, L149) and other parent volatiles at 3.20 and 3.32 AU to achieve an overall measure of the volatile composition of this comet. The apparent enrichment in the coma of "hypervolatiles” will be discussed in terms of fractionation of native ices within the nucleus. We gratefully acknowledge support from the NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Research Grants Program (PI/co-PI Bonev/Gibb), by the NASA's Planetary Astronomy (PI Mumma; PI DiSanti), Planetary Atmospheres (PI DiSanti; PI Villanueva), and Astrobiology (PI Mumma) Programs, and by the German-Isreal Foundation for Scientific Research and Development (PI Böhnhardt).

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