Reconciling the emission mechanism discrepancy in Mira's tail, and its
  evolution in an interface with shear
  GALEX observations of the Mira AB binary system revealed a surrounding
structure that has been successfully hydrodynamically interpreted as a bow
shock and tail of ram-pressure-stripped material. Even the narrow tail,
initially difficult to model, has been understood as the effect of the passage
of Mira from a warm neutral medium into a hot, low-density medium, postulated
to be the Local Bubble. However, no model to date has explained the observed
kink and associated general curvature of the tail. We test the hypothesis that
before entering the Local Bubble, Mira was travelling through a shear flow with
approximately 1/3 Mira's own velocity at an angle of ~30degrees to Mira's
proper motion. The hypothesis reproduces the kinked nature of Mira's tail and
predicts recompression and reheating of the tail material to the same or
greater levels of density and temperature predicted in the shock. This provides
a heat source for the FUV emission, allowing for an extended lifetime of the
FUV emission in line with other estimates of the age of the tail. The
uniqueness of Mira's situation implies that the chances of observing other FUV
tails behind AGB stars is highly unlikely.
