dipper@utastro.UUCP (Debbie Byrd) (03/19/85)
The world's first artificial comet was scheduled for this past Christmas. More on what happened -- after this. March 19 Results from the Christmas Comet This past Christmas morning was the target date for the birth of the worlds' first artificial comet. Actually, cloudy weather for ground-based observers postponed the "comet" until two days after that, December 27 -- but the main fact is, the artificial comet worked. The artificial comet sprang from a satellite orbiting 70 thousand miles above the Earth. The signal for its birth was radioed up from Earth -- releasing a container of barium-laced copper oxide crystals -- the makings of a detectable cloud in space. The purpose of the artificial comet was to have a means of studying the solar wind, which consists of streams of ionized particles moving outward from the sun in all directions. Once released, the artificial comet behaved something like a real comet. It was blown by the solar wind -- so that it developed a long "tail" as real comets do. The tail of the artificial comet stretched some 10 thousand miles at one point. One unexpected result was that the tail lasted a very short time. The tail was expected to be detectable for about an hour-and-a-half -- but it lasted for only about 15 minutes. The artificial comet showed that the solar wind was blowing very hard on December 27 -- flowing past at about 350 miles per second, instead of 200 miles per second as anticipated. The world's first artificial comet was so useful in studying the solar wind that now there are plans to do it all again. The second artificial comet is planned for a release in July. Script by Deborah Byrd. (c) Copyright 1984, 1985 McDonald Observatory, University of Texas at Austin