The Spin Temperature of NH 3 in Comet C/1999S4 (LINEAR)

• Published in: Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) 2001-11, Vol.294 (5544), p.1089-1091
• Main Authors: Kawakita, Hideyo, Watanabe, Jun-ichi, Ando, Hiroyasu, Aoki, Wako, Fuse, Tetsuharu, Honda, Satoshi, Izumiura, Hideyuki, Kajino, Toshitaka, Kambe, Eiji, Kawanomoto, Satoshi, Noguchi, Kunio, Okita, Kiichi, Sadakane, Kozo, Sato, Bun'ei, Takada-Hidai, Masahide, Takeda, Yoichi, Usuda, Tomonori, Watanabe, Etsuji, Yoshida, Michitoshi
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0036-8075; 1095-9203
• DOI: 10.1126/science.1064339

A high-dispersion spectrum of Comet C/1999S4 (LINEAR) was obtained in the optical region with the high-dispersion spectrograph on the Subaru telescope when the comet was 0.863 astronomical units from the Sun before its disintegration. We obtained high signal-to-noise ratio emission lines of the cometary NH 2 bands from which an ortho-to-para ratio (OPR) of 3.33 ± 0.07 was derived on the basis of a fluorescence excitation model. Assuming that cometary NH 2 mainly originates from ammonia through photodissociation, the derived OPR of NH 2 molecules should reflect that of ammonia, which provides information on the environment of molecular formation or condensation and of the thermal history of cometary ices. Assuming that the OPR of ammonia in comets was unchanged in the nucleus, the derived spin temperature of ammonia (28 ± 2 kelvin) suggests that a formation region of the cometary ammonia ice was between the orbit of Saturn and that of Uranus in the solar nebula.