Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-xfwgj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-23T19:27:30.521Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Contribution of Long Period Comets to the Interplanetary Dust Cloud

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2016

M. Fulle
Affiliation:
Osservatorio Astronomico ViaTiepolo 11 I-34131 TriesteItaly
G. Cremonese
Affiliation:
Osservatoria Astronomico Vicolo dell’ Osservatorio 5 I-35122 PadovaItaly

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The numerical analysis of cometary dust tails (Fulle 1989) allows to obtain the mass loss rate, the size distribution, the ejection velocity and the orbital eccentricity of the dust grains ejected by the parent comets. All these physical quantities are necessary and sufficient to compute the comet mass contribution to the interplanetary dust cloud. We apply this method to three long period comets, namely C∕Bennett 1970II, C∕Bradfield 1987XXIX and C∕Liller 1988V, and obtain that each long period comet injects in bound orbits at least half of the total produced mass. When we consider that a typical long period comet can produce more than 1014 g of dust along each perihelion passage, we obtain that the considered long period comets alone injected a input mass rate of about 106 g s−1 of meteoroids in bound orbits during the last 20 years, a contribution which is very close to that from all short period comets.

Type
Cometary Dust: Observations and Evolution
Copyright
Copyright © Kluwer 1991

References

Fulle, M. (1989) Evaluation of cometary dust parameters from numerical simulations: comparison with analytical approach and role of anisotropic emissions. Astron. Astrophys. 217, 283297 Google Scholar
Fulle, M. (1990) Meteoroids from short period comets. Astron Astrophys. 230, 220 226 Google Scholar
Hanner, M.S., Newburn, R.L., Gehrz, R.D., Harrison, T., Ney, E.P., Hayward, T.L. (1990) The infrared spectrum of Comet Bradfield (1987s) and the silicate emission feature. Astrophys .J. 348, 312 321 Google Scholar
Hogner, W., Richter, N. (1980) Isophotometric Atlas of Comets, Par. II, Springer-Verlag Google Scholar
Mukai, T. (1988) Dust from the comets. Highlights of Astronomy 8, 305 312 Google Scholar
Olsson-Steel, D. (1990) The orbital distribution and origin of meteoroids. Origin and evolution of interplanetary dust (126th IAU Colloquium) Kluwer Academic Publisher Google Scholar
Sekanina, Z., Schuster, H.E. (1978a) Meteoroids from Periodic Comet D’Arrest. Astron. Astrophys. 65, 29 35 Google Scholar
Sekanina, Z., Schuster, H.E. (1978b) Dust from Periodic Comet Encke: Large Grains in Short Supply. Astron. Astrophys. 68, 429 435 Google Scholar
Sykes, M. (1990) Cometary and asteroidal sources of interplanetary dust. Origin and evolution of interplanetary dust (126th I AU Colloquium) Kluwer Academic Publisher Google Scholar