ALBERT

Description: Emission features near 3.4 microns were detected in comet Bradfield (1987s) on 17 Nov. 1987 UT, and, marginally, on two earlier dates, with the Cooled Grating Array Spectrometer at the NASA Infrared Radio Telescope Facility (IRTF) (Brooke et al., 1988b). The central wavelength (3.36 microns) and width (approx. 0.15 microns) of the strongest feature coincide with those observed in comet Halley. A weaker emission feature at 3.52 microns and a strong feature extending shortward of 2.9 microns were also detected. This brings the number of comets in which these three features have been seen to three, two new (Bradfield, Wilson) and one old (Halley). It seems almost certain that the 3.4 micron features are emissions by C-H groups in complex molecules. Based on the similarity of the 3.4 micron features in comets Halley and Wilson, the authors suggest that a particular set of organic compounds may be common to all comets (Brooke et al. 1988a). The absence of the feature in some comets could then be due to photodestruction or evaporation of the organics when the comet approaches the sun, in combination with a predominance of thermal emission from non C-H emitting grains. Detection of the 3.4 micron emission feature in comet Bradfield at 4 = 0.9 AU provides support for this argument. Complex organics in comets could have been formed by particle irradiation of parent ices in the nucleus or been incorporated as grains at the time the comets formed. Since the most heavily irradiated layers of Halley would have been lost in its hundreds of perihelion passages, the authors believe the more likely explanation is that the 3.4 micron emitting material was incorporated in comet nuclei at the time of formation. The 3.4 micron comet feature resembles, but is not identical to, the interstellar 3.29 micron (and longer wavelength) emission features and the broad 3.4 micron feature seen in absorption toward the Galactic center. Detailed comparisons of cometary and interstellar organics will require comet spectra with signal-to-noise and spectral resolution comparable to that available in spectra of the interstellar medium. Such observations are currently being planned.

Description: Ground-based observations and the Pioneer 10 mission have led to new discoveries and revisions of previous ideas about the outer solar system. Among these are the discovery of atmospheres on lo and Ganymede, emission from sodium and hydrogen in a cloud around lo, and the presence of acetylene, ethane, and phosphine in the atmosphere of Jupiter. Titan, the largest satellite of Saturn, continues to be an extremely interesting and baffling object, clearly very different in composition from the bodies we are familiar with in the inner solar system; this is also true of Ganymede and Callisto. New data on the abundances of methane and hydrogen in the atmospheres of Uranus and Neptune suggest that the values of C/H in these atmospheres may be much lower than had been previously thought. This result reinforces the apparent compositional differences between these two planets and Jupiter and Saturn, whose atmospheres exhibit a near-solar value for this ratio.

Description: Deuterium in the atmosphere of Uranus has been studied only via measurements of the exceedingly weak dipole lines of hydrogen-deuteride (HD) seen in the visible region of the spectrum. The other sensitive indicator of deuterium in the outer solar system is monodeuterated methane (CH3D) but the two bands normally used ot study this molecule, NU sub 2 near 2200 1/cm and NU sub 6 near 1161 1/cm, have not been detected in Uranus.

Description: Multiple Copernicus scans of two N2 band regions (near 958.5 and 960.2A) of Delta Sco and Epsilon Per are reported. The observations indicate upper limits for the number of N2 molecules equal to 1.0-3.8 times 10 to the -12th/sq cm and 1.2-4.4 times 10 to the -12th/sq cm, respectively; the limits depend on the cloud temperature. It is suggested that the limits are consistent with the column densities predicted by chemical models for diffuse interstellar clouds, and the predicted relative abundances are presented in terms of the ratio of N(N2)/(2N(H2) + N(Hl)).

Description: High-resolution laboratory spectra of large pressure path-lengths of methane have been acquired in the region of the 6825-A band. The intensities, spacings, and splitting of the absorption features appearing in this band are not compatible with a previous suggestion that they are rotational manifolds of the 5 nu 3 band of methane.

Description: UV spectrograms of Comet Seargent (1978m) have been obtained with the IUE satellite in the low- (1.8-nm) and high- (0.1-nm) dispersion modes. In the long-wavelength region (189-340 nm) emission bands of OH, CS, CO2(+), NH, and CO(+) can be identified, and the rotational structure of OH could clearly be resolved. In the short-wavelength region (119-192 nm) emission lines of H(Lyman-alpha), O I, C I, and S I appear. These observations demonstrate that the IUE observatory can effectively be used to obtain high-quality spectra of comets as faint as ninth magnitude.

Description: Comet Bradfield's 3.4-micron C-H emission feature at 3.4 microns, as well as the emission feature near 2.8 microns, exhibit spectral shapes similar to those noted in Comets Halley and Wilson; the derived abundances of the C-H bonds in all three comets are also comparable (within water production rate uncertainties). These data support the hypothesis that the species responsible for the 3.4- and 2.8-micron features may be common to all comets. Beyond this, the widely differing ages of the three comets suggest that the 3.4-micron feature-emitting organics are not the product of surface irradiation processes after the comets' formation.

Description: There are now a large number of small bodies in the outer solar system that are known to be covered with dark material. Attempts to identify that material have been thwarted by the absence of discrete absorption features in the reflection spectra of these planetesimals. An absorption at 2.2 micrometers that appeared to be present in several objects has not been confirmed by new observations. Three absorptions in the spectrum of the unusually red planetesimal 5145 Pholus are well-established, but their identity remains a mystery.

Description: A series of determinations of the CH3D/CH4 ratio in the atmospheres of Saturn, Titan, and Uranus has been completed. These results, coupled with the work of other investigators, suggest that the solar system contains at least two distinctly different primordial reservoirs of deuterium: that contained in gaseous hydrogen and that contained in the volatiles which have been maintained at low temperatures or isolated from hydrogen; for example, trapped in cold, solid material. Both of these reservoirs were established before the formation of the solar system.