Other
Scientific paper
Dec 1986
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1986esasp.250b.177s&link_type=abstract
In ESA Proceedings of the 20th ESLAB Symposium on the Exploration of Halley's Comet. Volume 2: Dust and Nucleus p 177-181 (SEE N
Other
1
Comet Nuclei, Cosmic Dust, Equators, Halley'S Comet, Light Scattering, Particle Laden Jets, Astronomical Photography, Rotation, Space Observations (From Earth)
Scientific paper
On photographs from late April until at least early June 1986, comet Halley is seen to display a narrow spike in the Sun's general direction. It extends to distances of at least 700,000 km from the nucleus in projection onto the sky on computer processed photographs. The spike is obviously composed of dust and its enormous sunward extent (compared to other dust features) suggests an anomalously high ratio of particle ejection velocity to solar radiation pressure. The implied grains are either dielectric or slightly absorbing and very low0.1 μm in size, which are undetectable optically, unless Earth is located in or very near a plane of their concentration. The only plane to which these grains can possibly be confined for long is the equatorial plane of the nucleus, especially when the obliquity is small. Accordingly, the spike's position as a function of time contains information on the comet's spin axis. This concept is applied to interpret the observations.
Emerson Gary
Helin Eleanor F.
Larson Stefan M.
Schmidt Ricardo E.
Sekanina Zdenek
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