Sun storm hits comet

[Dover]

Sun storm hits comet

Mark Peplow

Battered tail gives visual evidence of solar explosions.


The tail of comet Ikeya-Zhang took a beating from a solar explosion. © Gerald Rhemann / JPL / NASA

Eruptions of matter from the surface of the Sun can create chaos in a comet's tail, astronomers have found.

They have shown that three different coronal mass ejections in 2002 caused wobbles in the tail of comet Ikeya-Zhang. It is the first time the Sun's ejections have been shown to affect a comet in this way.

Astronomers Geraint Jones of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, and John Brandt, from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, used pictures taken by amateur astronomers at the time of the ejections to examine the tail. They publish their results online in Geophysical Research Letters1.

Jones and Brandt believe that by analysing distortions in the tails of other comets, they will be able to pinpoint exactly where short-lived solar eruptions are coming from, and how far their effects reach into space....cont'd

http://www.nature.com/news/2004/041206/full/041206-4.html

[soothsayer]

1. Nice shot, Sol!