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Solar wind interactions with Comet 19P/Borrelly |
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| Authors: | DT Young FJ Crary JE Nordholt D Boice A Eviatar JJ Hanley DJ McComas D Reisenfeld RC Wiens |
| Institution: | a Southwest Research Institute, P.O. Drawer 28510, San Antonio, TX, 78228-0510, USA b The University of Michigan, Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA c Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87544, USA d University of Colorado, Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, Boulder, CO 80309-0392, USA e Tel Aviv University, Department. of Geophysics and Planetary Sciences, Ramat Aviv, Israel f University of Hawaii, Institute of Astronomy, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA g Max Planck Institute for Aeronomy, D-3411 Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany |
| Abstract: | The Plasma Experiment for Planetary Exploration (PEPE) made detailed observations of the plasma environment of Comet 19P/Borrelly during the Deep Space 1 (DS1) flyby on September 22, 2001. Several distinct regions and boundaries have been identified on both inbound and outbound trajectories, including an upstream region of decelerated solar wind plasma and cometary ion pickup, the cometary bow shock, a sheath of heated and mixed solar wind and cometary ions, and a collisional inner coma dominated by cometary ions. All of these features were significantly offset to the north of the nucleus-Sun line, suggesting that the coma itself produces this offset, possibly because of well-collimated large dayside jets directed 8°-10° northward from the nucleus as observed by the DS1 MICAS camera. The maximum observed ion density was 1640 ion/cm3 at a distance of 2650 km from the nucleus while the flow speed dropped from 360 km/s in the solar wind to 8 km/s at closest approach. Preliminary analysis of PEPE mass spectra suggest that the ratio of CO+/H2O+ is lower than that observed with Giotto at 1P/Halley. |
| Keywords: | Comets dynamics Comets composition Solar wind |
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