On the Cyanate Radical, NCO, in the ISM
N. Marcelino, M. Agúndez, J. Cernicharo, E. Roueff, and M. Tafalla
reported on the
Discovery of the Elusive Radical NCO and Confirmation of H<sub>2</sub>NCO<sup>+</sup> in Space
Astron. Astrophys. 612, Art. No. L10 (2018).
The cyanate (or isocyanate) radical was detected in the course of a 3 mm line survey of the dense core L483 toward the young stellar object IRAS 18148–0440 carried out with the IRAM 30 m telescope. Two Λ-components were detected in emission for each of the three strong hyperfine components of two transitions, J = 3.5 – 2.5 near 81.411 GHz and J = 4.5 – 3.5 near 104.67 GHz. The derived abundance is only about a factor of five lower than that of HNCO.
Contributor(s): H. S. P. Müller; 05, 2018