the distribution of carbon among its various forms remain poorly known in the diffuse interstellar medium. carbon is a key element in the understanding of extraterrestrial chemistry. in the solid phase, a potentially important form of carbon has been detected in the near infrared absorption spectra of distant luminous infrared sources (e.g. in the galactic center). medium resolution ground based spectroscopy in the 3 micron window has shown that an important component of carbon lies in saturated aliphatic hydrocarbons, through the detection of a set of weak absorption features around 3.4 micron. these features are attributed to c-h stretching modes of -ch2 and -ch3 chemical groups in relatively simple hydrocarbons. however, it is well known that precise identification of complex organic molecules, in laboratory spectroscopy, can be made only in the fingerprint region between 5 and 9 micron. this region is inaccessible from the ground and we propose to obtain spectra of a small number of distant objects in this spectral region. our goal is to probe the real organic content of the diffuse interstellar medium, to quantify the amount of carbon that can be found in various classes of molecules (aliphatics, aromatics, olefins ..) and to understand the evolution of this carbon in space. a link with primitive solar system materials (comets and carbonaceous chondrites) will be considered as our iso results will be precious for the preparation and future interpretation of the rosetta mission in which the investigators of this proposal are heavily involved. > time is to be transferred to this proposal from llane.early_k. up to 30 lines of text may be included in the abstract.
Instrument
SWS06
Temporal Coverage
1997-03-15T08:38:07Z/1997-03-15T18:34:21Z
Version
1.0
Mission Description
The Infrared Space Observatory (ISO) was the world's first true orbiting infrared observatory. Equipped with four highly-sophisticated and versatile scientific instruments, it was launched by Ariane in November 1995 and provided astronomers world-wide with a facility of unprecedented sensitivity and capabilities for a detailed exploration of the Universe at infrared wavelengths.
