Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-2jptb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-16T23:54:03.672Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Wind-Sock Theory of Comet Tails

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2016

John C. Brandt  and
Edward D. Rothe

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Type I or ionic comet tails on the average make an angle of a few degrees at the nucleus with the prolonged radius vector in the direction opposite to the comet’s orbital motion. This fact was explained by Biermann (1951) as the aberration angle caused by the comet’s motion in the outflowing solar wind plasma, and, as is well known, led to the discovery of the solar wind itself.

Type
Part II
Information
International Astronomical Union Colloquium , Volume 25 , Issue Part2: The Study of Comets , 1976 , pp. 878 - 892
Copyright
Copyright © NASA 1976

References

Alfvén, H. 1957, Tellus, 9, 92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Behannon, K. W. 1970, J. Geophys. Res., 75, 743.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Belton, M. J. S. 1965, A. J., 75, 451.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Belton, M. J. S., and Brandt, J. C. 1966, Ap. J. Suppl., 13, 125 (No. 117).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bessel, W. 1836, A.N., 13, 185.Google Scholar
Biermann, L. 1951, Zs. f. Ap., 29, 274.Google Scholar
Brandt, J. C. 1967, Ap. J., 147, 201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brandt, J. C., Harrington, R. S., and Roosen, R. G. 1973, Ap. J., 184, 27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bredichin, Th. 1884, Ann. Moscou Obs., 10, 7.Google Scholar