Isotopic abundances of carbon and nitrogen in Jupiter-family and Oort Cloud comets

Preprint

1 August 2005

preprint
Published by arXiv in arXiv

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.astro-ph/0508033

Abstract

The 12C14N/12C15N and 12C14N/13C14N isotopic ratios are determined for the first time in a Jupiter-family comet, 88P/1981 Q1 Howell, and in the chemically peculiar Oort Cloud comet C/1999 S4 (LINEAR). By comparing these measurements to previous ones derived for six other Oort Cloud comets (including one of Halley-type), we find that both the carbon and nitrogen isotopic ratios are constant within the uncertainties. The mean values are 12C/13C ~ 90 and 14N/15N \~ 145 for the eight comets. These results strengthen the view that CN radicals originate from refractory organics formed in the protosolar molecular cloud and subsequently incorporated in comets.

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Version 1, 2005-08-01, ArXiv
Published version: Astronomy & Astrophysics, 440 (2), L21.

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