Astrophysics > Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
[Submitted on 3 Jan 2018 (v1), last revised 14 Mar 2018 (this version, v3)]
Title:Strong CO$^+$ and N$_2^+$ Emission in Comet C/2016 R2 (Pan-STARRS)
View PDFAbstract:We report on imaging and spectroscopic observations of comet C/2016~R2 (Pan-STARRS) obtained with the 0.8\,m and 2.7\,m telescopes of McDonald Observatory in November and December 2017 respectively. The comet was at a heliocentric distance greater than 3\,{\sc au} during both sets of observations. The images showed a well-developed tail with properties that suggested it was an ion tail. The spectra confirmed that we were observing well-developed bands of CO$^+$ and N$_2^+$. The N$_2^+$ detection was unequivocally cometary and was one of the strongest bands of N$_2^+$ detected in a comet spectrum. We derived the ratio of these two ions and from that we were able to derive that N$_2$/CO = 0.15. This is the highest such ratio reported for a comet.
Note erratum - N2/CO=0.06 not 0.15.
Submission history
From: Anita L. Cochran [view email][v1] Wed, 3 Jan 2018 23:00:53 UTC (349 KB)
[v2] Tue, 30 Jan 2018 23:06:10 UTC (350 KB)
[v3] Wed, 14 Mar 2018 18:40:25 UTC (351 KB)
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