Carbon suboxide in Comet Halley?

Abstract

The extremely dark nucleus of Comet Halley suggests that its volatile ices contain a few percent of carbonaceous material in the form of graphitic or amorphous carbon. The very high abundance of light elements in the coma dust and the emission feature near 3.4 microns further suggest the presence of a significant organic component, although the identified carbon-containing materials' parent species cannot account for all of such a component. It is presently proposed that an additional contribution from carbon suboxide can account for these observational data, assuming a production rate about 0.03-0.04 times that of water.