Observations of comet IRAS-Araki-Alcock from Bell Laboratories.

This memo describes a search for three molecular species, (12)CO, CS, and CN, in comet IRAS-Araki-Alcock. The observations required the development of some novel observing methods to track the fast moving object with the 7-meter antenna. We failed to detect any spectral features in the comet. Our limit on the 12CO line strength is 2-orders of magnitude below the predicted value, indicating a serious problem with theoretical comet models.