The Carbon Monoxide Abundance in Comet 103P/Hartley during the EPOXI Flyby

TL;DR

This study measures the CO abundance in comet 103P/Hartley during the EPOXI flyby, revealing it to be highly CO-depleted and variable, with implications for its formation and evolutionary history.

Contribution

First spectroscopic detection of CO emission bands in 103P/Hartley during the EPOXI flyby, quantifying its low and variable CO/H2O ratio.

Findings

CO/H2O ratio is 0.15-0.45%, among the most CO-depleted comets.

CO emissions varied by ~30% in phase with other gases and dust.

The low CO abundance suggests formation in a CO-depleted or warm region of the solar nebula.

Abstract

We report the detection of several emission bands in the CO Fourth Positive Group from comet 103P/Hartley during ultraviolet spectroscopic observations from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) on 2010 November 4 near the time of closest approach by NASA's EPOXI spacecraft. The derived CO/H2O ratio is 0.15-0.45%, which places 103P among the most CO-depleted comets. Apparently this highly volatile species, whose abundance varies by a factor of ~50 among the comets observed to date, does not play a major role in producing the strong and temporally variable activity in 103P/Hartley. The CO emissions varied by ~30% between our two sets of observations, apparently in phase with the temporal variability measured for several gases and dust by other observers. The low absolute abundance of CO in 103P suggests several possibilities: the nucleus formed in a region of the solar nebula that was depleted in CO or too warm to retain much CO ice, repeated passages through the inner solar system have substantially depleted the comet's primordial CO reservoir, or any CO still in the nucleus is buried below the regions that contribute significantly to the coma.