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Terrestrial cometary tail and lunar corona induced by small comets: Predictions for Galileo
Author(s) -
Dessler A. J.,
Sandel B. R.,
Vasyliunas V. M.
Publication year - 1990
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/gl017i012p02257
Subject(s) - astrobiology , comet , interplanetary dust cloud , galileo (satellite navigation) , comet dust , interplanetary spaceflight , physics , astronomy , solar system , comet tail , geology , solar wind , geodesy , plasma , quantum mechanics
A search for small comets near 1 AU is an objective of the Galileo mission. If small comets are as numerous and behave as has been proposed, two near‐Earth signatures of small comets should be observable by the UVS experiment on the Earth flybys of Galileo: ( 1 ) a comet‐like tail of Earth created by small comets that come close to Earth, break up and vaporize, but just miss the atmosphere and proceed back into interplanetary space, and (2) a corona surrounding the Moon induced by lunar impact of small comets.