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Comets are thought to be among the most primitive bodies left over from
the planetesimal building stage of the solar nebula, and so their physical
and chemical composition provides an important link between nebular and
interstellar processes. A fundamental goal of cometary investigations is
to understand the origin and nature of cometary nuclei, in order to
explore how they link back to the protoplanetary disk. Of particular
interest are parent molecules, those which sublime directly from the
nucleus, as measurement of their abundances can reveal relative abundances
in the nucleus itself and therefore information about the conditions in
which the comet formed. High angular and spectral resolution
interferometry is essential to yield constraints on the photochemistry
and chemical reactions which occur in the innermost coma since emission
on large spatial scales can be selectively resolved out.
RG astronomers use the Submillimeter Array to obtain images of thermal dust continuum
emission and spectral line emission from the gas molecular species from
the inner coma of comets to study the isotopic fractionations
and chemical abundances difference between nuclear, extended sources
and jets -- gas sublimating from active spots on the nucleus.
Projects
Submillimeter Array
People
Mark Gurwell, Chunhua (Charlie) Qi
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