Ion temperature and flow profiles in Comet Halley's close environmentThe Giotto high intensity spectrometer identified the contact surface 4800 km from the comet nucleus. This boundary is clearly seen by a drastic drop in the temperatures of different ion species from 2000 K outside to values as low as 300 K inside. Inside the contact surface outflow speed = > 1 km/sec, in contrast to a value around 0 right outside. These numbers might be affected by a potential charge-up of the spacecraft. Outside the contact surface, the ion temperature rises gradually with increasing distance. Between 9000 and 10,000 km distance the ion density increases by a factor of 4. At 27,000 km distance there is again a rather abrupt jump to significantly higher temperatures, higher outflow speeds, and lower densities.
Document ID
19870015745
Acquisition Source
Legacy CDMS
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Schwenn, R. (Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Ip, WING-H. (Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Rosenbauer, H. (Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Balsiger, H. (Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Buehler, F. (Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Goldstein, R. (Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Meier, A. (Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Shelley, E. G. (Lockheed Aircraft Corp. Palo Alto, Calif., United States)
Date Acquired
September 5, 2013
Publication Date
December 1, 1986
Publication Information
Publication: ESA Proceedings of the 20th ESLAB Symposium on the Exploration of Halley's Comet. Volume 1: Plasma and Gas