Ammonium Salts Reveal Reservoir of 'Missing' Nitrogen in Comets (3 of 6) (VIDEO)

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

Caption

Artificial cometary surface (5-cm in diameter) made of opaque minerals and ammonium salts. Particles move in the gas flow produced by the sublimation of water ice located underneath. This material relates to a paper that appeared in the 13 March issue of Science, published by AAAS. The paper, by O. Poch at Université Grenoble Alpes in Grenoble, France, and colleagues was titled, "Ammonium salts are a reservoir of nitrogen on a cometary nucleus and possibly on some asteroids."

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[Credit: Olivier Poch, UGA, CNES, CNRS]

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