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Solid organics in cometary comae

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2008

Gian Paolo Tozzi  and
Ludmilla Kolokolova
Gian Paolo Tozzi
Affiliation:
INAF .. Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, Firenze, Italy email: tozzi@arcetri.astro.it
Ludmilla Kolokolova
Affiliation:
University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA email: ludmilla@astro.umd.edu
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Abstract

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It is known since long ago that in comets a large quantity of organic matter exists in form of grains or is embedded in silicate grains. This was detected in situ by cometary space missions as well as inferred as a distributed source of some molecules observed in comets. Since organic matter is rather volatile, finding slow sublimating grains in comets can be good evidence of organics as a constituent of such grains. Here we describe a method to detect sublimating grains in comets. It consists of specific observations, specific data analysis, and some light-scattering modeling. We detect sublimating grains by measuring the quantity of grains as a function of the nucleocentric distance. Once detected, it is possible to get their photometric characteristics and compare them with the results of light-scattering modeling. The method has been applied to several comets. Sublimating grains were reliably identified for two of them.

Keywords

Astrobiologycomets: generalmethods: data analysis
Type
Contributed Papers
Information
Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union , Volume 4 , Symposium S251: Organic Matter in Space , February 2008 , pp. 313 - 314
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2008

References

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