Study of the halley comet near tail glow by Vega-2 three-channel spectrometer data from 10 March 1986 Original Research Article

Two-dimensional intensity distributions of the dust continuum, the neutrals and the CO+ ion at comparatively undisturbed conditions, taken on 10 March 1986 are applied in order to investigate the near tail of the Halley comet region. Data from the three-channel spectrometer on board Vega-2 are used. An overall decrease of the dust continuum intensity profile with a gradient -.86±.21 is obtained. Superimposed maxima are observed, probably resulting from the dust jets and the nucleus rotation. Such behaviour is not observed in the OH and C2 distributions. The neutralsʹ intensity decreases with the increase of the distance to the nucleus. The mean CO+ ion velocity is estimated to lie in the interval from -100 to -140 km/s, on the basis of the (3,0) band form and some band intensity ratios. The presence of spatial (possibly dust) sources at distances about 2×105 km from the nucleus is affirmed and noticeable changes in the scales of the order of 10 minutes are observed in the CO+ distributions.