Related papers: Origin and Evolution of Short-Period Comets
We present numerical simulations to model the production of observable long-period comets (LPCs) from the Oort Cloud, a vast reservoir of icy bodies surrounding the Sun. We show that inner Oort Cloud objects can penetrate Jupiter's orbit…
The outer Solar System is believed to host a vast reservoir of long-period comets (LPCs), but our understanding of their spatial distribution and dynamical history remains limited due to observational biases and uncertainties in orbital…
The apparent source region (or regions) of long-period comets as well as the definition of the dynamically new comet are still open questions.The aim of this investigation is to look for the apparent source of selected long period comets…
We examine the orbital element distribution of main-belt comets (MBCs), which are objects that exhibit cometary activity yet orbit in the main asteroid belt, and may be potentially useful as tracers of ice in the inner solar system. We find…
The dynamical evolution of long-period comets (LPCs) and their meteoroid streams is usually described with the Sun as the primary body, but over most of their orbits the Solar System barycenter (SSB) is effectively the orbital focus.…
We show that if comets (or any small icy planetesimals such as Kuiper belt objects) are composed of pebble piles, their internal radiogenic as well as geochemical heating results in considerably different evolutionary outcomes compared to…
Recent observations show activity in long-period comet C/2017 K2 at heliocentric distances beyond the orbit of Uranus. With this as motivation, we constructed a simple model that takes a detailed account of gas transport modes and simulates…
The complete sample of large-perihelion nearly-parabolic comets discovered during the period 1901-2010 is studied starting from their orbit determination. Next, an orbital evolution that includes three perihelion passages…
A new classification scheme is introduced for comet-like bodies in the Solar system. It covers the traditional comets as well as the Centaurs and Edgeworth-Kuiper belt objects. At low inclinations, close encounters with planets often result…
According to Munoz-Gutierrez et al. (2015) the orbit of comet 1P/Halley is chaotic with a surprisingly small Lyapunov time scale of order its orbital period. In this work we analyse the origin of chaos in Halley's orbit and the growth of…
Evidence for cometary activity beyond Jupiter and Saturn's orbits -- such as that observed for Centaurs and long period comets -- suggests that the thermal processing of comet nuclei starts long before they enter the inner Solar System,…
The discovery of Main Belt Comets (MBCs) has raised many questions regarding the origin and activation mechanism of these objects. Results of a study of the dynamics of these bodies suggest that MBCs were formed in-situ as the remnants of…
Context: Increasingly, Oort Cloud comets are being discovered at great distances from the Sun and tracked over ever wider ranges of heliocentric distances as observational equipment improves. Aims: To investigate in detail how the original…
The Centaurs are a population of small, planet-crossing objects in the outer solar system. They are dynamically short-lived and represent the transition population between the Kuiper belt and the Jupiter family short-period comets.…
A novel explanation for the origin of the cometary globules within NGC 7293 (the "Helix" planetary nebula) is examined; that these globules originate as massive cometary bodies at large astrocentric radii. The mass of such hypothetical…
The cratering record on the Earth and Moon shows that our planet has been exposed to high velocity impacts for much or all of its existence. Some of these craters were produced by the impact of long period comets (LPCs). These probably…
Comets are believed to be born in the outer Solar System where the temperature is assumed to have never exceeded T ~ 100 K. Surprisingly, observations and samples of cometary dust particles returned to Earth showed that they are in fact…
This text was originally written to accompany a series of lectures that I gave at the `35th Saas-Fee advanced course' in Switzerland and at the Institute for Astronomy of the University of Hawaii. It reviews my current understanding of the…
We present new analyses of the photometric lightcurve of Comet 1P/Halley during its 1985/86 apparition. As part of a world-wide campaign coordinated by the International Halley Watch (IHW), narrowband photometry was obtained with telescopes…
Past and future dynamical evolution of all 64 long period comets having 1/aori< 1\times10-4 au-1 and qosc > 3.0 au and discovered after 1970 is studied. For all of them we obtained a new, homogeneous set of osculating orbits, including 15…