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The Origin of Comets

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 August 2015

F. L. Whipple
F. L. Whipple*
Affiliation:
Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A.

Abstract

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The evolution of the solar system is surveyed, it being presumed that the Sun, Jupiter, and Saturn formed rather quickly and essentially with the composition of the original collapsing cloud of dust and gas. Just as the refractory material of the cloud is considered to have formed into planetesimals, from which the terrestrial planets collected, so is the icy material supposed to have produced comets, or cometesimals, from which Uranus and Neptune (and to some extent Saturn and Jupiter) were built up. The presence of a residual belt of comets beyond the orbit of Neptune is discussed, analysis of possible perturbative effects on P/Halley indicating that the total mass of such a belt at 50 AU from the Sun could not now exceed the mass of the Earth.

Type
Part V/Origin and Evolution of Comets
Information
Symposium - International Astronomical Union , Volume 45: The Motion, Evolution of Orbits and Origin of Comets , 1972 , pp. 401 - 408
Copyright
Copyright © Reidel 1972 

References

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