Other
Scientific paper
Apr 2000
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2000natur.404..576g&link_type=abstract
Nature, Volume 404, Issue 6778, pp. 576-578 (2000).
Other
17
Scientific paper
Remote sensing observations and the direct sampling of material from a few comets have established the characteristic composition of cometary gas. This gas is ionized by solar ultraviolet radiation and the solar wind to form `pick-up' ions, ions in a low ionization state that retain the same compositional signatures as the original gas. The pick-up ions are carried outward by the solar wind, and they could in principle be detected far from the coma. (Sampling of pick-up ions has also been used to study interplanetary dust, Venus' tail and the interstellar medium.) Here we report the serendipitous detection of cometary pick-up ions, most probably associated with the tail of comet Hyakutake, at a distance of 3.4 AU from the nucleus. Previous observations have provided a wealth of physical and chemical information about a small sample of comets, but this detection suggests that remote sampling of comet compositions, and the discovery of otherwise invisible comets, may be possible.
Balsiger Hans
Fisk Len A.
Geiss Johannes
Gloeckler George
Ipavich Fred M.
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