An Artificial Comet Experiment
Abstract
The joint U.S., West German and British Active Magnentospheric Particle Tracer Explorers experiment (AMPTE) employs detectors from three different satellites and will involve the injection of plasma into the solar wind. The experimental situation is analogous to that of a comet in that expanding neutral gases (barium and lithium) will interact with the solar wind while they are being ionized. Such cometary coma plasma interaction processes as the trapping of magnetic filed, the stretching of field lines, and the erosion and acceleration of cometary plasma, are expected to occur and to be visible through both remote imaging and in situ plasma diagnostics carried by the three AMPTE satellites.
- Publication:
-
The Need for Coordinated Ground-based Observations of Halley's Comet
- Pub Date:
- April 1982
- Bibcode:
- 1982ncgb.conf..181H
- Keywords:
-
- Comets;
- Ion Injection;
- Mission Planning;
- Plasma Interaction Experiment;
- Solar Wind;
- Barium;
- Earth Magnetosphere;
- International Cooperation;
- Lithium;
- Plasma Diagnostics;
- Satellite Orbits;
- Geophysics