The Chemical Composition of 9P/Tempel 1 from Radio Observations

In 2005, as part of a world-wide multi-wavelength investigation of comet 9P/Tempel 1 in support to the Deep Impact mission, we conducted radio spectroscopic observations with the Nancay radio telescope, the Odin satellite, the CSO 10-m and the IRAM 30-m telescopes. We report here our results concerning the chemical composition of the comet. The relative abundances of the detected species (H2O, CH3OH, H2S, HCN) or their upper limits (CO, H2CO, CS) are comparable to the mean values observed in other comets. No significant changes of the outgassing rates (except possibly for CH3OH) or of the molecular abundances were observed following the impact.