Search for ammonia in comet C/2012 S1 (ISON)

Comets are uniquely pristine bodies providing unique insights about the formation of our Solar System. In this work, we focus on a dynamically new comet as it enters the inner Solar System for the first time after residing for billion of years in the Oort Cloud. Such comets are particularly important because they are thought to be not differentiated by solar radiation and they are supposed to have a large quantity of organic matter close to the surface. Here we report the results of a search for NH₃(1,1) emission at 23.7 GHz towards comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) using a new dual-feed K band receiver mounted on the Medicina 32-m antenna. We observed the comet close to its perihelion, from 25 to 29 November 2013, when its heliocentric distance changed from 0.25 AU to 0.03 AU. We derive an upper limit of Q(NH₃) of about 2.5×10²⁹ mol s^-1 on 26 November, that is consistent with the last peak of water production rate of ∼2×10³⁰ mol s^-1 within the last few days before the perihelion.

Volume

118

Start page

173

Uri

http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12386/24167

Url

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S003206331500183X?via%3Dihub

Issn Identifier

0032-0633

Ads BibCode

2015P&SS..118..173F

Rights

open.access

File(s)

Name

elsarticle-ISONatMED-harv_reviewed.pdf

Description

postprint

Size

70.5 KB

Format

Adobe PDF

Checksum (MD5)

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Name

PSS2015.pdf

Description

[Administrators only]

Size

268.66 KB

Format

Adobe PDF

Checksum (MD5)

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Search for ammonia in comet C/2012 S1 (ISON)

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