NASA Logo

NTRS

NTRS - NASA Technical Reports Server

Back to Results
Spacecraft observations of the interaction of active comets with the solar windSix spacecraft encountered two comets during 1985 and 1986, obtaining a wealth of data relative to the plasma processes at work in the interaction of an active comet with the solar wind. A review of what space plasma scientists have learned from these data and of their interpretations is presented. The interaction process begins millions of kilometers from the nucleus where the solar wind first picks up cometary ions that slow down the wind and causes the interplanetary magnetic field to pile up and drape around the comet's ionosphere. Thus the geometry of a comet's plasma tail is defined by this draped field. At Halley the Giotto spacecraft noted a well-defined boundary separating the mixture of solar wind and cometary plasmas and the interplanetary magnetic field from the free-field, almost pure cometary plasma in the inner coma. Additional unexpected features in the inner coma were a flux of fast 'granddaughter' ions and high densities of negative ions. Further details covering pickup ions and plasma waves, mass loading, bow shock, energetic particles, the cometosheath, the ionopause, the plasma tail, and the field-free region are provided.
Document ID
19900058220
Acquisition Source
Legacy CDMS
Document Type
Reprint (Version printed in journal)
Authors
Neugebauer, M.
(JPL Pasadena, CA, United States)
Date Acquired
August 14, 2013
Publication Date
May 1, 1990
Publication Information
Publication: Reviews of Geophysics
Volume: 28
ISSN: 8755-1209
Subject Category
Astrophysics
Accession Number
90A45275
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other

Available Downloads

There are no available downloads for this record.
No Preview Available