The refractory-to-ice ratio in comet 67P: implications on the composition of the comet-forming region of the protoplanetary disk

TL;DR

This study uses Rosetta mission data to estimate the refractory-to-ice ratio in comet 67P, revealing insights into its composition and formation region in the early Solar System.

Contribution

It combines volatile and refractory measurements with a Monte Carlo method to constrain the refractory-to-ice ratio and elemental abundances in comet 67P, providing new formation region insights.

Findings

Refractory-to-ice ratio constrained between 0.5 and 1.7.

Noble gases show near-solar abundance for xenon, depletion for krypton and argon.

Formation region estimated between 25 and 35 au with temperatures of 30-40 K.

Abstract

Comets, asteroids, and other small bodies are thought to be remnants of the original planetesimal population of the Solar System. As such, their physical, chemical, and isotopic properties hold crucial details on how and where they formed and how they evolved. Yet, placing precise constraints on the formation region of these bodies has been challenging. Data from spacecraft missions have a particularly high potential of addressing the question of the origin of the visited bodies. ESA's Rosetta mission to comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko returned data from the comet for two years on its journey around the Sun. This extensive data set has revolutionised our view on comets and still holds unsolved problems. We use the Rosetta/ROSINA (Rosetta Orbiter Spectrometer for Ion and Neutral Analysis) measurement of the volatile/ice composition and the Rosetta/COSIMA (COmetary Secondary Ion Mass Analyzer) measurements of the refractory composition of comet 67P. These measurements are combined using a Monte Carlo method. The refractory-to-ice ratio is a free parameter that is constrained a posteriori. Using only the composition, we constrain the refractory-to-ice ratio to $0.5<\chi<1.7$, and derive the bulk elemental abundances for 67P of H, C, N, O, Na, Mg, Al, S, K, Ar, Ca, Cr, Mn, Fe, Kr, and Xe. We find the noble gas xenon in near solar elemental abundance in comet 67P. Krypton is slightly depleted, while argon is heavily depleted. Comet 67P is enriched in all three noble gases by up to 2.5 orders of magnitude compared to CI chondrites. We show this is consistent with a formation region between 25 and 35 au in a protoplanetary disk region with temperatures between 30 and 40 K and with the trapping of dust for a long time in rings of the protoplanetary disk.