Carbon production in comet West 1975n

Rocket-ultraviolet spectra of comet West 1975n are reported which were obtained with scanning spectrophotometers in the wavelength range from 1200 to 1300 A. The principal emission features observed include lines of C, O, and C(+), as well as bands of OH, CO, CO(+). The estimated fluxes of the C, O, H, CO, and OH features are found to be consistent with a photodissociation source in which the CO evaporation rate is about one-third that of water. The presence of a large number of carbon atoms in the metastable 1D state is indicated and taken to suggest that dissociative recombination is important near the cometary nucleus, that CO must originate in the nucleus, and that CO is the primary carbon constituent of the comet.