A CONSIDERATION OF RADIO STAR SCINTILLATIONS AS CAUSED BY INTERSTELLAR PARTICLES ENTERING THE IONOSPHERE: PART II. THE ACCRETION OF INTERSTELLAR PARTICLES AS A CAUSE OF RADIO STAR SCINTILLATIONS

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Abstract
A previously reported analysis of measurements of radio star scintillations, which showed daily variations dependent on time of year, is here interpreted to be the result of the accretion of interstellar particles by the Sun's gravitational field. After a brief general discussion of the accretion process, the measurements are examined in an attempt to provide an explanation on that basis. Five distinct features exhibited by the scintillation data are interpreted as resulting from particles arriving at the Earth as follows: directly from interstellar space, from a collision region behind the Sun (both directly and after having crossed the Earth's orbit), and from the collision region by a process of accretion in the gravitational field of the Earth. The velocities of certain of these particles are derived by simple applications of vector addition employing the known velocity of the Earth. The collision region is calculated to be located a radial distance of 200 million miles from the Sun.

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