TENTATIVE IDENTIFICATION OF S-2 IN THE IUE SPECTRA OF COMET HYAKUTAKE(C 1996 B2)/

Spectra of Comet Hyakutake were obtained with the International Ultrav iolet Explorer (IUE) satellite on February 19, 1996, (20 days after it s discovery on January 31), and later during its closest approach to t he Earth at the end of March, with a geocentric distance of 0.1 AU. Th e cometary spectra are compared with a synthetic fluorescence spectrum of S-2 On March 27, we find that both synthetic and cometary spectra are reasonably correlated. This suggests that Sa was probably present in the cometary spectrum with a production rate between 6.5x10(24) and 1.0x10(25) molec/s and an abundance of 0.005 to 0.009 % relative to w ater.