Molecular oxygen and nitrogen are difficult to observe since they are infrared inactive and radio quiet. The low O{sub}2 abundances found so far combined with general considerations of dense cloud conditions suggest molecular oxygen is frozen out at low temperatures (<20K) in the shielded inner regions of cloud cores. In solid form O{sub}2 and N{sub}2 can only be observed as adjuncts within other ice constituents, like CO. In this work we focus on fundamental properties of N{sub}2 and O{sub}2 in CO ice-gas systems, e.g. desorption characteristics and sticking probabilities at low temperatures for different ice morphologies.
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