Modeling Water Chemistry in Comets

Details Modeling Water Chemistry in Comets Modeling Water Chemistry in Comets

Sep 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008dps....40.1616b&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #40, #16.16; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 40, p.414

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

Physico-chemical modeling is important to understand the nature and processes relevant to comets. Photochemistry is the major source of radicals and plasma that result from the release of parent molecules from the nucleus. Highly reactive photoproducts further initiate key gas-phase reactions in the inner coma, leading to the plethora of molecules and atoms seen in the coma. The effects of photoelectrons that react via electron impact reactions are important to the overall ionization, as originally discussed by Boice et al. [Geophys. Res. Lett. 13, 381 (1986)] and recently revisited by Bhardwaj [Geophys. Res. Lett. 30, 2244 (2003)] and Boice and Wegmann [Adv. Space Res. 39, 407 (2007).]. Within this modeling framework, important physico-chemical processes can be identified to interpret observations and in situ measurements of comets and to provide valuable insights into the intrinsic properties of their nuclei.
Model results include temperature and velocity structure, photo- and gas-phase chemistry, gas and electron energetics, and composition throughout the coma. Details of these processes are presented, from the collision-dominated inner coma to the solar wind interaction region. This model successfully accounted for the Halley water-group chemistry and composition and has been successfully applied to other comets, including S2 in comet Hyakutake, and observations of C2, C3, and NS in comet Hale-Bopp. Model results are generally consistent with the recent data analysis of the in situ measurements from the PEPE instrument onboard the Deep Space 1 Mission to comet Borrelly, This extensive modeling effort to investigate these important cometary processes is highly relevant to past, on going, and future spacecraft missions comets and Earth-based observations of these primitive objects.
Acknowledgements. We acknowledge funding and support from the NASA Discovery Data Analysis Program and the NSF Planetary Astronomy Program.

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