In-situ observations of cometary pick-up ions greater than 0.2 AU upstream of Comet Halley - ICE observations

Details In-situ observations of cometary pick-up ions greater than 0.2 AU upstream of Comet Halley - ICE observations In-situ observations of cometary pick-up ions greater than 0.2 AU upstream of Comet Halley - ICE observations

Aug 1986

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1986georl..13..861w&link_type=abstract

Geophysical Research Letters (ISSN 0094-8276), vol. 13, Aug. 1986, p. 861-864.

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

13

Energetic Particles, Halley'S Comet, Heavy Ions, Plasma Diagnostics, Giacobini-Zinner Comet, Solar Wind, Spaceborne Astronomy, Spectral Energy Distribution

Scientific paper

Burst-like enhancements of energetic ions were observed by the EPAS instrument on the International Cometary Explorer (ICE) during its closest approach to (28 x 10 to the 6th km upstream of) Comet P/Halley, in late March 1986. The ion intensity was modulated by the varying solar wind speed (the latter reaching maxima of around 600 km/s), as was found to be the case for heavy cometary ions accelerated by pick-up in the solar wind flow, during the ICE encounter with Comet P/Giacobini-Zinner (G-Z). Therefore it is concluded that the observed pick-up ions (most probably greater than or equal to 65 keV oxygen ions) are produced by heavy neutrals from Comet Halley. The observations of energetic ions at such large distances suggest the presence, in the neutral atmosphere surrounding the nucleus, of a component with an ionization scale length of 5-10 million km, resulting from a relatively high expansion speed of a few km/s and/or an ionization time scale of a few times 10 to the 6ths.

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