Abstract
As a comet's orbit takes it near to the Sun, neutral gas and dust are dirven away from the nucleus. The gas ionizes due to photoionization and charge exchange. A dense ‘ionosphere’ forms near to the comet, bounded by a contact surface. New, ‘pickup’ ions are produced on a much larger distance scale of ∼10 6 km, forming an enormous region over which the comet-solar wind interaction occurs. The new ions form an unstable population in the flowing solar wind. The solar wind is slowed, forming a bow shock and several other features including the cometary plasma tail. The solar wind interaction is quite different to that of a magnetized planet, where a magnetopause forms a blunt obstacle in the supersonic solar wind flow. In this paper we review our knowledge of the plasma environment of comets, particularly in the light of spacecraft data from the three comets visited so far.
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