The Deep Space One Comet Borrelly flyby
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Deep Space One Borrelly↗
Engineering topics
Ip, W. -H.
Publications and source records attributed to Ip, W. -H..
The ion population between 1300 km and 230000 km in the coma of comet P/Halley
During the encounter of the spacecraft Giotto with Comet Halley the two sensors of the ion mass spectrometer (IMS), high energy range spectrometer (HERS) and high intensity spectrometer (HIS), measured the mass and the three-dimensional velocity distributions of cometary ions. HIS looked mainly at the cold, slow part of the distribution close to the nucleus, HERS at the more energetic pick-up ions further out. After a thorough recalibration of the HIS flight spare unit and an extensive data analysis we present here continuous ion density-, composition-, velocity-, and temperature profiles for the water group ion (mass range 16-19 amu/e) along Giotto's inbound trajectory from 230,000 to 1300 km from the comet nucleus. The two sensors are in very good agreement in the region where their measurements overlap thus giving an excellent data base for the discussion of theoretical comet models. The most prominent feature where models and observations disagree is the so called pile up region between 8000 and 15,000 km from the nucleus.
Altwegg, K.↗