Abstract
Current theory holds that jets, spirals and other detailed features in cometary comae are visible only in the continuum reflected by the dust particles. It has generally been thought that these features could not be seen in the emission bands of the typical neutral species, at least in part because the neutral parent molecules expand in directions perpendicular to any linear feature in a time short compared with that required to travel the length of the features. Consequently, the daughter species normally observable at optical and ultraviolet wavelengths are produced by dissociations that take place far from the point of origin of the gas. Here we present images of comet Halley taken in the light of CN emission, that show prominent jets extending to >60,000 km from the nucleus and lasting several weeks. We interpret these images as jets of submicrometre particles, perhaps the organic ‘CHON’ particles detected from spacecraft, from which the CN is directly produced.
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