Publication Date:
1997-12-24
Description:
Radar observations of comet Hyakutake (C/1996 B2) made at the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex in California have detected echoes from the nucleus and from large grains in the inner coma. The nucleus of this bright comet was estimated to be only 2 to 3 kilometers in diameter. Models of the coma echo indicate backscatter from porous, centimeter-size grains ejected anisotropically at velocities of tens of meters per second. The radar observations suggest that a comet's activity may be a poor indicator of its size and provide evidence that large grains constitute an important component of the mass loss from a typical active comet.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Harmon -- Ostro -- Benner -- Rosema -- Jurgens -- Winkler -- Yeomans -- Choate -- Cormier -- Giorgini -- Mitchell -- Chodas -- Rose -- Kelley -- Slade -- Thomas -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 1997 Dec 12;278(5345):1921-4.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉J. K. Harmon, National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center, Arecibo Observatory, Post Office Box 995, Arecibo, PR 00614, USA. S. J. Ostro, L. A. M. Benner, K. D. Rosema, R. F. Jurgens, R. Winkler, D. K. Yeomans, D. Choate, R. Cormier, J. D. Giorg.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9395389" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
