Back to Search
Start Over
Gaseous atomic nickel in the coma of interstellar comet 2I/Borisov
- Publication Year :
- 2021
- Publisher :
- arXiv, 2021.
-
Abstract
- On 31 August 2019, an interstellar comet was discovered as it passed through the Solar System (2I/Borisov). Based on initial imaging observations, 2I/Borisov appeared to be completely similar to ordinary Solar System comets - an unexpected characteristic after the multiple peculiarities of the only previous known interstellar visitor 1I/'Oumuamua. Spectroscopic investigations of 2I/Borisov identified the familiar cometary emissions from CN, C2, O I, NH2, OH, HCN, and CO, revealing a composition similar to that of carbon monoxide-rich Solar System comets. At temperatures >700 K, comets additionally show metallic vapors produced by the sublimation of metal-rich dust grains. However, due to the high temperature needed, observation of gaseous metals has been limited to bright sunskirting and sungrazing comets and giant star-plunging exocomets. Here we report spectroscopic detection of atomic nickel vapor in the cold coma of 2I/Borisov observed at a heliocentric distance of 2.322 au - equivalent to an equilibrium temperature of 180 K. Nickel in 2I/Borisov seems to originate from a short-lived nickelbearing molecule with a lifetime of $340^{+260}_{-200}$ s at 1 au and is produced at a rate of $0.9 \pm 0.3 \times 10^{22}$ atoms s$^{-1}$, or 0.002% relative to OH and 0.3% relative to CN. The detection of gas-phase nickel in the coma of 2I/Borisov is in line with the concurrent identification of this atom (as well as iron) in the cold comae of Solar System comets.<br />Accepted manuscript with minor post-acceptance corrections
- Subjects :
- Physics
Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
Solar System
Multidisciplinary
010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences
Thermodynamic equilibrium
Astronomical unit
chemistry.chemical_element
FOS: Physical sciences
Coma (optics)
Astrophysics
01 natural sciences
Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies
Nickel
chemistry
Astrophysics - Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
Interstellar comet
Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)
0103 physical sciences
Sublimation (phase transition)
010303 astronomy & astrophysics
Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)
0105 earth and related environmental sciences
Line (formation)
Astrophysics - Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Subjects
Details
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....0b86e10fbb05e205b715bc9e5d6d694f
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2105.09305