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The Wind-Sock Theory of Comet Tails

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2016

John C. Brandt  and
Edward D. Rothe

Extract

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Type I or ionic comet tails on the average make an angle of a few degrees at the nucleus with the prolonged radius vector in the direction opposite to the comet’s orbital motion. This fact was explained by Biermann (1951) as the aberration angle caused by the comet’s motion in the outflowing solar wind plasma, and, as is well known, led to the discovery of the solar wind itself.

Type
Part II
Information
International Astronomical Union Colloquium , Volume 25 , Issue Part2: The Study of Comets , 1976 , pp. 878 - 892
Copyright
Copyright © NASA 1976

References

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