Abstract
Enhancement in scintillations of radio sources attributable to plasma irregularities in the cometary tail have been reported for comet Kohoutek1 and recently for comet Halley2,3. The radio sources suitable for studying the plasma tail of a comet must have a significant fraction of their flux density in the sub-arc second structure, so a set of 30 sources lying within 2° of the path of comet Halley and with a flux density of S408≳ 0.8 Jy were chosen from the Molonglo Catalogue4 and interplanetary scintillation (IPS) observations of them were made with the Ooty Radio Telescope at 327 MHz during January 19865. From these, four were found to be suitable for cometary scintillation observations; these were done between February and April 1986. We monitored nearly simultaneously other scintillating sources outside the tail for comparison and, in contrast with earlier claims of positive detection, found no significant increase in the level of turbulence that could be attributed to the plasma tail.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 51 print issues and online access
$199.00 per year
only $3.90 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ananthakrishnan, S., Bhandari, S. M. & Pramesh Rao, A. Astrophys. Space Sci. 37, 275–283 (1975).
Alurkar, S. K., Bhonsle, R. V. & Sharma, A. K. Nature 322, 493–441 (1986).
Slee, O. B., McConnel, D., Lim, J. & Bobra, A. D. Nature 325, 699–701 (1987).
Large, M. I. et al. Mon. Not. R. astr. Soc. 194, 693–704 (1981).
Swarup, G. et al. Nature 230, 185–188 (1971).
Rao, A. Pramesh, Bhandari, S. M. & Ananthakrishnan, S. Aust. J. Phys. 27, 105–120 (1974).
Reme, H. et al. Nature 321, 349–352 (1986).
Grard, R. et al. Nature 321, 290–291 (1986).
Hajivassiliou, C. A. & Duffett-Smith, P. J. Mon. Not. R. astr. Soc. (in the press).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ananthakrishnan, S., Manoharan, P. & Venugopal, V. Occultation observations of compact radio sources through comet Halley's plasma tail. Nature 329, 698–700 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1038/329698a0
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/329698a0
This article is cited by
-
Possible contribution of a solar transient to enhanced scintillation of a quasar
Earth, Moon, and Planets (1992)
-
Quasar enhanced
Nature (1989)
Comments
By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.