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Interception of comet Hyakutake's ion tail at a distance of 500 million kilometres

Nature volume 404, pages 576–578 (2000)Cite this article

Abstract

Remote sensing observations1,2,3,4,5 and the direct sampling of material6,7,8 from a few comets have established the characteristic composition of cometary gas. This gas is ionized by solar ultraviolet radiation and the solar wind to form ‘pick-up’ ions9,10,11, ions in a low ionization state that retain the same compositional signatures as the original gas. The pick-up ions are carried outward by the solar wind, and they could in principle be detected far from the coma. (Sampling of pick-up ions has also been used to study interplanetary dust12,13, Venus’ tail14 and the interstellar medium15,16.) Here we report the serendipitous detection of cometary pick-up ions, most probably associated with the tail of comet Hyakutake, at a distance of 3.4 au from the nucleus. Previous observations have provided a wealth of physical and chemical information about a small sample of comets6,7,8,9, but this detection suggests that remote sampling of comet compositions, and the discovery of otherwise invisible comets, may be possible.

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Figure 1: Mass per charge spectrum of C+ + O+ observed during a one-day period on 1 May 1996.
Figure 2: Density of C+ + O+ ions measured with SWICS at 3.73 au .
Figure 3: SWICS observations during 60 hours centred on 1 May 1996.

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Acknowledgements

The SWICS instrument was developed by a collaboration of the universities of Maryland, Bern and Braunschweig, and the Max-Planck Institut für Aeronomie. We thank C. Gloeckler for help with data reduction, and M. R. Combi and M. F. A’Hearn for discussions. This work was supported by NASA/JPL and the Swiss National Science Foundation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics and Institute for Physical Science and Technology, University of Maryland, College Park, 20742, Maryland, USA

    G. Gloeckler & F. M. Ipavich

  2. Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 48109, Michigan, USA

    G. Gloeckler, N. A. Schwadron, L. A. Fisk & T. H. Zurbuchen

  3. International Space Science Institute , Hallerstrasse 6, Bern, CH-3012, Switzerland

    J. Geiss & R. von Steiger

  4. Physikalisches Institut, University of Bern, Sidlerstrasse 5, Bern, CH-3012, Switzerland

    H. Balsiger

  5. Max-Planck Institut für Aeronomie, Katlenburg-Lindau, D-37189, Germany

    B. Wilken

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  1. G. Gloeckler
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Correspondence to G. Gloeckler.

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Gloeckler, G., Geiss, J., Schwadron, N. et al. Interception of comet Hyakutake's ion tail at a distance of 500 million kilometres. Nature 404, 576–578 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/35007015

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