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Formation Mechanisms of the Split Tail of Comet Bradfield 1987XXIX

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2016

Ken Sugawara
Affiliation:
Atsugi City Children’s Science Center 1-1-3, Nakachou, Atsugi-shi, Kanagawa 243, Japan
Jun-ichi Watanabe
Affiliation:
National Astronomical Observatory Mitaka, Tokyo, 181, Japan

Abstract

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Comet Bradfield 1987XXIX showed a well-developed split tail, which is a dust tail feature divided into two branches by a dark gap. Similar structures have been observed in several comets. The split tail of comet Seki-Lines is one of them; some authors tried to explain it by rapid dust vaporization or self-regulation model. However, these models can not explain in the case of comet Bradfield 1987s. It was suggested in our previous works that the trend of variation of position angle of the dark gap coincides well with that of the plasma tail or projected radial vector. We discuss the formation mechanisms of the split tail from the view point of dust-plasma interactions.

Type
Cometary Dust: Observations and Evolution
Copyright
Copyright © Kluwer 1991

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