Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
Jun 2006
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006aspc..348..421k&link_type=abstract
Astrophysics in the Far Ultraviolet: Five Years of Discovery with FUSE ASP Conference Series, Vol. 348, Proceedings of the Confe
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
1
Scientific paper
Molecular nitrogen (N2) is the most abundant molecule in the Earth's atmosphere and in the less chemically-processed atmosphere of Titan. Until recently N2 had never been detected in interstellar space. We report on the first detection of interstellar N2 in the interstellar medium (ISM) toward the star HD 124314 with an observed fractional abundance of N2/H2 = 3.3 × 10-7. This N2 abundance is almost two orders of magnitude larger than expected from models of interstellar nitrogen chemistry for diffuse clouds and is also less than expected from dark cloud chemistry. Preliminary analysis of high signal to noise data on 20 Aql yields x(N2) ≤ 4.7 × 10-8, which is surprisingly low given that 20 Aql has a higher CN abundance. There appears to be an anticorrelation between N2 and CN: Is this anti-correlation caused by differences in the predictions of diffuse and dark cloud chemistry? Further observations of interstellar N2 are required to fully understand the implications for interstellar nitrogen chemistry.
Andersson Bengt-Goran
Knauth David C.
McCandliss Stephan R.
Moos Warren H.
No associations
LandOfFree
Discovery of Interstellar N2 does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.
If you have personal experience with Discovery of Interstellar N2, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Discovery of Interstellar N2 will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-1860307