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Detection of a new “chemical” boundary at comet Halley
Author(s) -
Gringauz K. I.,
Gombosi T. I.,
Tátrallyay M.,
Verigin M. I.,
Remizov A. P.,
Richter A. K.,
Apáthy I.,
Szemerey I.,
Dyachkov A. V.,
Balakina O. V.,
Nagy A. F.
Publication year - 1986
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/gl013i007p00613
Subject(s) - comet , solar wind , physics , halley's comet , ion , plasma , comet tail , geology , discontinuity (linguistics) , geophysics , astronomy , astrophysics , astrobiology , nuclear physics , mathematical analysis , mathematics , quantum mechanics
Plasma observations near comet Halley indicate that around 1.6×10 5 km from the nucleus a newly discovered sharp boundary (cometopause) separates the solar wind controlled external and the heavy cometary ion dominated internal regions. Such a discontinuity was previously not predicted by theoretical models. Inside the cometopause (in the cometary plasma region) the protons and heavy ions move with different speeds: the heavy ion velocity is less than a few km/s throughout this region, while the protons decelerate from several tens of km/s (observed near the cometopause) to a few km/s (near 1.5×10 4 km).