Search Publications
Probing the Evolutionary History of Comets: An Investigation of the Hypervolatiles CO, CH4, and C2H6 in the Jupiter-family Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner
Feaga, Lori M.; Cochran, Anita L.; Vervack, Ronald J., Jr. +13 more
Understanding the cosmogonic record encoded in the parent volatiles stored in cometary nuclei requires investigating whether evolution (thermal or otherwise) has modified the composition of short-period comets during successive perihelion passages. As the most volatile molecules systematically observed in comets, the abundances of CO, CH4
Carbonyl Sulfide (OCS): Detections in Comets C/2002 T7 (LINEAR), C/2015 ER61 (PanSTARRS), and 21P/Giacobini-Zinner and Stringent Upper Limits in 46P/Wirtanen
Vervack, Ronald J., Jr.; Kawakita, Hideyo; DiSanti, Michael A. +6 more
Carbonyl sulfide (OCS) is one of the sulfur-bearing molecules detected in different astronomical environments, including comets. The present-day sulfur chemistry in comets may reveal much about the origin of these ices and their subsequent processing history. Cometary sulfur molecules such as H2S, H2CS, SO2, SO, CS…
Low-activity Main-belt Comet 133P/Elst-Pizarro: New Constraints on Its Albedo, Temperature, and Active Mechanism from a Thermophysical Perspective
Ip, Wing-Huen; Hsia, Chih Hao; Yu, Liang Liang
133P/Elst-Pizarro is the first recognized main-belt comet, but we still know little about its nucleus. First we use mid-infrared data of Spitzer MIPS, Spitzer IRS, and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer to estimate its effective diameter, ${D}_{\mathrm{eff}}={3.9}_{-0.3}^{+0.4}$ km, geometric albedo, ${p}_{{\rm{v}}}=0.074\pm 0.013$ , and mean…