Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T06:31:39.902Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

3.7 Predicted Favorable Visibility Conditions for Anomalous Tails of Comets

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2016

Zdenek Sekanina*
Affiliation:
Center for Astrophysics, Harvard College Observatory, and Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, U.S.A.

Extract

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.

It was shown elsewhere (Sekanina, 1974) that the observability from the earth of an anomalous tail (antitail) of a comet can be rather straightforwardly predicted from the dynamical and geometric conditions. The physical presence or absence of the antitail at a precalculated time is then a measure of the comet’s production rate, at the relevant emission times, of relatively heavy dust particles (mostly of submillimeter size) that constitute such an antitail. Because the large grains are e-mitted from the nucleus at very low velocities (typically meters or tens of meters per second), an antitail is essentially a two-dimensional formation in the orbit plane of the comet and can be recognized best when projected edge-on, i.e., when the earth crosses the nodal line of the comet’s orbit. In general, however, this condition is not essential for the recognition of antitails (cf., e.g., Comet Kohoutek 1973 XII).

Type
3 Cometary Dust
Copyright
Copyright © Springer-Verlag 1976

References

Cook, A. F. (1973), in “Evolutionary and Physical Properties of Meteor-oids”, Hemenway, C. L., Miliman, P. M., and Cook, A. F., Eds., NASA SP-319, Washington, D.C., p. 183.Google Scholar
Everhart, E., and Raghavan, N. (1970), Astron. J. 75, 258.Google Scholar
Marsden, B. G. (1975), Catalogue of Cometary Orbits. (2nd edition.) IAU Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams, Smithsonian Astrophys. Obs. Google Scholar
Roemer, E., and Lloyd, R. E. (1966), Astron. J. 71, 443.Google Scholar
Sekanina, Z. (1973), Astrophys. Lett. 14, 175.Google Scholar
Sekanina, Z. (1974), Sky and Tel. 47, 374.Google Scholar
Sekanina, Z. (1975), Icarus 25, 218.Google Scholar
Vsekhsvyatsky, S. K. (1958), Physical Characteristics of Comets. (In Russian.) Moscow, p. 51. (English transi.: Jerusalem, 1964.) Follow-ups: Soviet Astron. 6, 849 (1963); 10, 1034 (1967); and 15, 310 (1971).Google Scholar