Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-75dct Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-17T17:24:32.141Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Splitting of Periodic Comets

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2017

Giuseppe Forti
Giuseppe Forti*
Affiliation:
Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, 50125 Firenze, Italy

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.

Among the comets that were observed to break in two or more fragments, only a few of them are periodic. So far the dynamic study of the relative motion of a secondary nucleus with respect to the primary has supposed that a cometary fragment is subject to a small and continuous radial nongravitational force after separation at rest. This force acts against the solar attraction and varies according to an inverse square law. A small impulse at break up may also be invoked in some case. A different approach is followed in this paper when dealing with a fragment of a periodic comet: after separation the motion of a secondary nucleus is characterized by nongravitational forces which vary according to the same g(r) law currently used for the primary.

Results of the study of comets P/Biela and P/du Toit-Hartley show that the motion of their fragments after separation is characterized by nongravitational parameters which are larger than those of the parent bodies. Both fragments lasted for about 2 full revolutions and three returns.

Keywords

CometsSplittingNongravitational Forces
Type
Part V - Comets
Information
Symposium - International Astronomical Union , Volume 152: Chaos, Resonance and Collective Dynamical Phenomena in the Solar System , 1992 , pp. 281 - 285
Copyright
Copyright © Kluwer 1992 

References

1. Forti, G. (1989), The motion of several periodic comets., Astron. Astroph., 215, 381–386.Google Scholar
2. Marsden, B. G. (1986), Catalogue of Cometary Orbits 5th ed., IAU Central Bureau for Astron. Telegrams, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A. Google Scholar
3. Marsden, B. G. and Sekanina, Z. (1971), Comets and nongravitational forces. IV., Astron. J., 76,1135–1151.Google Scholar
4. Marsden, B. G., Sekanina, Z. and Yeomans, D. K. (1973), Comets and nongravitational forces. V, Astron. J., 78, 211–225.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
5. Sekanina, Z. (1977), Relative motions of fragments of the split comets. I. A new approach, Icarus, 30, 574–594.Google Scholar
6. Sekanina, Z. (1982), The problem of split comets in review. In Comets , Wilkening, L. L., Ed., 251–287. Univ. of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar