Abstract
A THEORY originally proposed by Patterson et al.1 and recently extended by Blum and Fahr2 suggests that the collision of interstellar hydrogen with the solar system produces an anisotropic distribution of fast neutral hydrogen atoms. This theory has been used by Chambers et al.3 to interpret their Vela 7 Lyman alpha results. They have shown that a peak in the Lyman alpha brightness occurs in a direction very close to the velocity vector of the solar system as given by Allen4, implying that the radiation originates in the shock front which surrounds the solar system. Despite the plausibility of the shock wave theory, it seems that the interpretation of Chambers et al. of their data may be erroneous.
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References
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BOWERS, B. Galactic Lyman Alpha and the Interstellar Shock Wave. Nature 228, 1182–1183 (1970). https://doi.org/10.1038/2281182a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/2281182a0
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