The pick-up of cometary protons by the solar wind
Abstract
The High Energy Range Spectrometer (HERS) of the Ion Mass Spectrometer on the Giotto spacecraft measured the 3-dimensional distribution of picked-up cometary protons over a distance of approximately 8 million km upstream of the bow shock of Comet Halley. The protons were observed to be elastically scattered out of their original cycloidal trajectories such that they were nonuniformly distributed over a spherical shell in velocity space. The shell radius (relative to its expected radius) and thickness increased as the bow shock was approached. Downstream of the shock, the cometary protons could not be distinguished from the heated solar wind protons.
- Publication:
-
NASA STI/Recon Technical Report N
- Pub Date:
- March 1987
- Bibcode:
- 1987STIN...8719342N
- Keywords:
-
- Bow Waves;
- Halley'S Comet;
- High Energy Interactions;
- Protons;
- Shock Waves;
- Elastic Scattering;
- Mass Spectrometers;
- Particle Trajectories;
- Photoionization;
- Solar Wind;
- Solar Physics