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On the sodium tail of comet Hale‐Bopp (C/1995 O1)
Author(s) -
Kupperman D. G.,
Paxton L. J.,
Carbary J.,
Romick G. J.,
Anderson D. E.,
Meng C.I.,
Feldman P. D.
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/98gl02254
Subject(s) - physics , comet , sodium , astrophysics , comet tail , radiation pressure , halley's comet , astronomy , chemistry , plasma , nuclear physics , organic chemistry , solar wind
Observations of the sodium tail of comet Hale‐Bopp (C/ 1995 O1) were made with the Midcourse Space Experiment (MSX) satellite near perihelion. Observations of the dust continuum, H 2 O + emissions, and sodium tail are reported. The measurements show the Na tail to be diffuse and located between the dust and ion tails. The midrange spatial scale of the MSX measurements (10 4 to 10 6 km) is complementary to the high spatial resolution measurements of Brown et al. (submitted to Icarus , 1997) and large‐scale measurements of Cremonese et al . [1997], less than 10 4 km and greater than 3.5×10 6 km, respectively. The primary Na source appears to be from the inner coma and nucleus region. The observations are fit with a sodium point source model affected only by radiation pressure to obtain excellent agreement.