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The possibility that the formation of the plasma pile-up region at comet Halley as observed by Giotto could be the combined result of field-aligned transport and recombination process is discussed. Giotto measurements support the hypothesis.
The objectives are to develop techniques to detect and remove long-term instrument drifts from the operational Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet (SBUV/2) data base using periodic measurements made by the Shuttle Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet Spectral Radiometer and to evaluate the potential effects of scattering by atmospheric aerosols on our ability to detect trends in ozone using SBUV-class instruments.
For comets Halley and Giacobini-Zinner (GZ), the model of the rocket-like, outgassing forces affecting the comet motion is shown to be consistent with the vaporization of water ice from the comet nuclei. For comet GZ, the dramatic time dependence of the outgassing forces suggests that this comet's spin axis passed through the orbit plane in the mid 1960's. Modeling of Halley's motion over two millennia indicates that the comet is rotating in a direct sense, with no obvious long-term time dependence in the average outgassing forces. The precession of the spin pole axis is not apparent. Secular changes in the comet's angular elements show no evidence for a ring of comet-like material beyond the orbit of Neptune. An obvious 1986 postperihelion bias in comet Halley's observation residuals is modeled by assuming a radial center-of-light/center-of-mass offset.
During the period of this contract (February 1 1980 to February 1987) there were two separate efforts involved: one was programmetric, i.e., the coordination of scientific working groups and the organization of workshops in the solar physics discipline; the second was scientific, i.e., to perform research to investigate the fundamental physical mechanisms of the energy and momentum transport from the solar surface to interplanetary space. In the former, 19 workshops, involving 88 scientists were organized. In the latter aspect, the following were investigated: solar flare energy buildup and release, coronal dynamics, energy and momentum transport from lower solar atmosphere to interplanetary space, numerical methods for the calculation of the nonlinear force-free field, and the evolution of the solar magnetic field.
Large numbers of meteorites have been concentrated at several locations in Antarctica. Glaciological mechanisms of grossly different time scales have been proposed to account for their transport by the ice, and the frequency distribution of the terrestrial ages of these objects has been suggested as a means of determining the relevant time scales. The upper limit to the ages of ice in Antarctica which would emerge from such a project is of interest to many other disciplines. After a meteorite reaches the Earth's surface, the specific radioactivity of Al-26 produced by cosmic rays while it was in space decreases because shielding by the Earth's atmosphere reduces further production to a neglible level. Thus, the known half life of this species can be used to determine the object's terrestrial age if the specific radioactivity at time of fall can be determined with reasonable accuracy and precision. The several models utilized for these predictions were based on the limited data available nearly two decades ago. The much larger data base now available was examined using multiple parameter regression analyses.
By careful measurements of the fluctuations in pulsar pulse periods on time scales of days and longer, researchers determined that these fluctuations are caused by changes in the rotation rate of the stellar crust apparently arising from matter accretion. The study of these fluctuations is a particularly promising way to determine the properties of accreting pulsars, because stellar rotation is relatively simple in comparison to much other X-ray source physics and can be investigated in detail. Rotation rates can be determined precisely.
Synoptic variability contained in a set of Tiros N channel brightness temperatures was analyzed for a nine-day period during January 1979, between the dateline and 90 deg W and between 30 deg N and 20 deg S. In the procedure, the spatial coherence of each channel is first described in terms of functions of interchannel differences and geographic and synoptic variations. Second, horizontal and vertical pattern of individual channels are examined through empirical orthogonal functional decomposition. Finally, response surface regression models are developed to predict missing Tiros N channels from available Tiros N and NOAA-5 data. The percentage variance was predicted for each channel from the Tiros N microwave and stratospheric channels. Generally speaking, about 80 percent of the variance in each channel can be predicted for the Tiros model, excepting the two tropospheric moisture channels, where prediction was less successful.
Both dynamical and chemical mechanisms have been advanced to explain the decrease in total ozone in the Antarctic spring. Further analysis of satellite measurements show that during any one year, the September decline in total ozone near the South Pole is compensated by an increase at midlatitudes. The total ozone amount from 44 deg S to the pole remains almost unchanged from August through November even though both the polar and midlatitude values reach extremes during this period. These observations suggest that the variations within the spring season in south polar total ozone are governed by dynamical redistribution rather than chemical processes.
Understanding the dynamical structure of circumstellar envelopes around cool giant and supergiant stars depends critically on the knowledge of what happens in the 'near zone' of the envelope, within a few stellar radii of the star. One probe with adequate angular resolution to study the near zone is VLBI observation of the SiO masers. It is shown that VLBI maps of VX Sgr establish that the particle density in the SiO masers is very high (about 10 to the 12th/cu cm), indicating that the masers form in dense cloudlets and not in a spherically expanding wind. The implications of these results for the mechanism of mass loss are discussed.
Disk-resolved near-opposition phase curves, derived for regions on Io suggest differences in surface texture among materials of different color on the satellite. This suggestion is tested quantitatively, using a photometric function having physically meaningful parameters. Derived values of the Hapke compaction parameter suggest that (1) a large percentage of the material on Io's surface has a porosity significantly greater than 60 percent and (2) average and polar materials are significantly more porous than Bright material, a contrast consistent with the Matson and Nash (1983) SO2 cold trap model. For the color classes, and for Io as a whole, the degree of backscattering tends to increase toward longer wavelengths. The average macroscopic roughness of the Ionian surface, characterized by a mean slope angle of about 25 degrees, is similar to that of other solid surfaces in the solar system.
A new grid of canonical zero-age horizontal branch (ZAHB) models is constructed to study the Sandage period-shift effect, and a number of possible explanations for the discrepancy between the observed and predicted period shifts are explored. Various factors which determine the period shift in ZAHB models are discussed in detail, showing that possible uncertainties in the input physics used for computing the preceding red-giant evolution are unlikely to resolve the discrepancy. Some test calculations for the ZAHB phase are presented which suggest than an increase in the metal opacity at temperatures around a million K might substantially increase the predicted period shift. It is found that a nonsolar CNO to Fe ratio is not a plausible explanation of the period-shift discrepancy, and the effects of evolution off the ZAHB in the period-effective temperature diagram are discussed. It is shown that evolution can increase the predicted period shift but not to the extent required by the Sandage effect. The possibility that rotation might explain the discrepancy is considered and rejected.
The July 6, 1980 looplike coronal mass ejection observed with the Solar Maximum Mission coronagraph is described and analyzed. Two observations are given special consideration: (1) the sides of the loop moved laterally while they were visible and did not form stationary bright columns, or 'legs', in the late stage, and (2) raylike features initially outside the mass ejection loop were not pushed aside or bent until the laterally moving loop sides passed over them. These observations, as well as the results of quantitative analysis of the motion of the bright loop, are consistent with the identification of the bright loop as a shock front. The loop top moved outward faster (at about 1000 km/s) than most mass ejections studied previously, and possibly faster than the Alfven speed in the corona, while the loop sides moved laterally at a speed of about 800 km/s and showed no evidence of deceleration. The excess mass in the bright loop is estimated to be less than about 2 x 10 to the 14th g, well below the value found to be typical of coronal mass ejections.
Global spectra are available for topography and geoid on the earth, Venus, Mars, and the moon. If the spectral energy density has a power law dependence on wave number, a fractal is defined. The topography spectrum for the earth is a well-defined fractal with D = 1.5; this corresponds to Brown noise with the amplitude proportional to the wavelength. Although there is more scatter for the other planetary bodies, the data for Mars and the moon correlate well with the data for the earth. Venus topography also exhibits a Brown noise behavior but with a smaller amplitude. The power law dependence of the earth's geoid is known as Kaula's law. It is shown that uncompensated Brown topography gives a geoid with a power law dependence that is in quite good agreement with Kaula's law. However, the required amplitude is only 8 percent of the observed topography. A similar result is found for the other bodies, with the ratio of the amplitude of topography required to explain the geoid to the observed topography increasing to 72 percent for the moon.
In virtue of the extent to which the visible and near-IR spectral reflectance of minerals that may be encountered on asteroid surfaces is a function of temperature, surface temperature distributions must be taken into account in the mineralogical evaluation of spectral reflectance data obtained from a spatially resolved asteroid surface. Possible errors of this type are presently illustrated for the case of a silicate mineral assemblage measured at the various temperatures that may be encountered over an asteroid surface, in order to allow optimal mineralogical data extraction.
In this paper a summary and synthesis are presented for results on the role of magnetic shear in the flare process that have been derived from the series of Flare Buildup Study Workshops in the Solar Maximum Analysis program. With emphasis on observations, the mechanisms that seem to produce the sheared magnetic configurations observed in flaring active regions are discussed. The spatial and temporal correlations of this shear with the onset of solar flares are determined from quantitative analyses of measurements of the vector magnetic field. The question of why some areas of sheared magnetic fields are the sites of flares and others are not is investigated observationally.
The Generic Screening Object hypothesis of Frank et al. (1986) is refuted, and it is indicated that the DE-1 dark pixel events do not serve as evidence for a large cometary influx. It is shown that the average scan line count profiles of the dark pixel events show no significant reductions in the two neighboring pixel positions, although at least a 9 percent reduction would be expected if the dark pixels were the result of shielding of the photometric field of view. In a reply, Frank et al. uphold their previous hypothesis, pointing out that the suggestion that the atmospheric holes are not a geophysical phenomenon is incorrect due to: (1) the use of an overly simplified model for the instrument responses to small, opaque objects as seen against a statistically fluctuating screen of dayglow intensities; and (2) an insufficient treatment of the observations.
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During the Voyager 1 spacecraft flyby of Titan on November 12, 1980, an intense broadband low frequency electric field noise was observed in the inbound wake. This so-called sheath noise is believed to be generated by an ion beam-plasma interaction between the ions in the corotational Saturnian magnetospheric plasma and nearly stationary plasma created by the ionization of Titan's atmosphere. The analysis is based on the information from Voyager 1 and reasonable assumptions. The results agree quite well with the observation. The analysis shows that the instability only occurs where the density of the corotational ions is comparable to the density of ions originating from Titan's atmosphere. The growth rate is high enough to generate the observed noise, and the calculated and observed frequency ranges are in good agreement.