Formaldehyde Emission in Comet C/2002 T7 (LINEAR) at Infrared Wavelengths: Line-by-Line Validation of Modeled Fluorescent Intensities

Details Formaldehyde Emission in Comet C/2002 T7 (LINEAR) at Infrared Wavelengths: Line-by-Line Validation of Modeled Fluorescent Intensities Formaldehyde Emission in Comet C/2002 T7 (LINEAR) at Infrared Wavelengths: Line-by-Line Validation of Modeled Fluorescent Intensities

Sep 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006dps....38.2902d&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #38, #29.02; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 38, p.535; Bulletin

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Cometary nuclei are the most primitive remnants of the early Solar System, so measuring abundances of their ices allows a glimpse into the conditions in which icy bodies formed.
Only in the last several years has it become possible to routinely study native cometary volatiles at infrared wavelengths. In spring 2004, we observed comet C/2002 T7 (LINEAR, hereafter C/T7) using the CSHELL spectrometer at the NASA-IRTF 3-m telescope. CSHELL offers sufficiently high spectral resolving power (λ/δλ 2.5 x 104) to permit line-by-line intensities to be measured. Emission lines from multiple molecular species were targeted in the 2.9 - 5.0 micron spectral region, and our observations revealed an extremely rich chemistry in C/T7, including formaldehyde (H2CO). H2CO is ubiquitous in dense interstellar clouds, so its presence is expected in comets if they contain interstellar material. These bodies delivered enormous quantities of pre-biotic chemicals to the young Earth, thus the abundance of H2CO in comets is of keen astrobiological interest.
C/T7 provided the best opportunity to date to compare H2CO line intensities predicted by an existing fluorescence model1 with high-resolution comet spectra. We present results2 showing a high degree of correlation between model and data. This work validates the model and permits highly reliable measures of rotational temperature and production rate of H2CO, for comparison with chemically related molecules (CO, methyl alcohol) in C/T7 and other comets in our database.
This research was supported by the NASA Planetary Atmospheres (RTOP 344-33-55), Astrobiology (RTOP 344-53-51), and Planetary Astronomy (RTOP 344-32-98) Programs.
References: 1Reuter, D. C., et al. 1989 Ap J 341:1045-1058; 2DiSanti, M. A., et al. 2006 Ap J (in press)

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