Observations of HCN in comet P/Halley

Details Observations of HCN in comet P/Halley Observations of HCN in comet P/Halley

Nov 1987

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1987a%26a...187..475s&link_type=abstract

Astronomy and Astrophysics (ISSN 0004-6361), vol. 187, no. 1-2, Nov. 1987, p. 475-480. Research supported by the U.S.-France Coo

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

62

Halley'S Comet, Hydrocyanic Acid, Line Spectra, Coma, Gas Dynamics, Reaction Products, Variability

Scientific paper

The authors present observations of the HCN J = 1-0 rotational transition at 3.4 mm wavelength in comet P/Halley. The data were obtained during a total of 56 individual observing sessions between November 1985 and May 1986. The HCN production rate is well correlated with the total visual magnitude of the comet, and comparison of the HCN production to the total gas production of the comet indicates that it is a relatively minor constituent with 0.1% the abundance of H2O. Comparison of HCN and CN production suggests that HCN is a major parent molecule of CN. HCN spectra obtained by binning the data with heliocentric distance show that the line width, and thus the parent outflow velocity, increases with decreasing heliocentric distance, and that there is a tendency for the lines to be blue shifted due to anisotropic outgassing from the nucleus. Finally, there is evidence of day-to-day time variability in the total HCN emission and in the hyperfine ratios.

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