The Morphological Change of the Sodium Tail in Comet Hale-Bopp (C/1995O1)

Details The Morphological Change of the Sodium Tail in Comet Hale-Bopp (C/1995O1) The Morphological Change of the Sodium Tail in Comet Hale-Bopp (C/1995O1)

Aug 1998

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1998apj...502l.185k&link_type=abstract

Astrophysical Journal Letters v.502, p.L185

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

4

Comets: General, Comets: Individual Name: Hale-Bopp 1995 O1

Scientific paper

The narrow sodium tail was observed in comet Hale-Bopp in the middle of 1997 April and the beginning of 1997 May. However, it was not observed in the middle of 1997 March. Wilson and coworkers recently proposed the hypothesis that the nucleus source of the sodium atoms, which produced the sodium narrow tail, would have commenced (or increased) between 1997 March 17 and April 16. We reproduce the narrow sodium tail on March 17 and on April 19 using a Monte Carlo simulation based on our near-nucleus spectroscopic observations. Our result shows that the narrow sodium tail (which originated from the near-nucleus source) was weak and short on March 17, while it was strong and long on April 19. The sodium production rate increased by a factor of 2 between 1997 March 17 and April 19 according to our observations. However, the g-factor of sodium atoms in the sodium tail on April 19 is 1 order of magnitude larger than that on March 17. The morphological change of the narrow sodium tail was mainly caused by the dependence of the radiation pressure and g-factor of the sodium atoms on the heliocentric radial velocity of the atoms rather than by the change of the nucleus source activity.

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