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UKIRT Annual Report 1995 and 1996
THE UNITED KINGDOM INFRARED TELESCOPE
ANNUAL REPORT
1995 AND 1996
2. Scientific Results during 1995 and 1996
2.1. Highlights from Semesters 95A, 95B, 96A, and 96B
2.1.3. Solar System
J.K. Davies and collaborators detected an absorption band of water ice in
comet Hale-Bopp. Despite the general consensus that comets are ``dirty
snowballs'' this is the first time that ice has been unambiguously detected
in a comet. The detection was made possible by the enhanced sensitivity of
CGS4 and the extreme brightness of Hale-Bopp, which made possible
sensitive spectroscopy of a comet when it was sufficiently distant from
the sun that material in the coma could be detected in a frozen state.
T. Owen and collaborators obtained 1-2.5 m spectra of several moons
of Saturn and Uranus, which exceed by an order of magnitude both the
resolution and sensitivity of previous spectra and reveal the detailed
shapes of numerous bands of water ice, frozen methane, and in some cases
solid CO, N and CO .
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