Recent Evolution of the Kracht Group of Comets

Details Recent Evolution of the Kracht Group of Comets Recent Evolution of the Kracht Group of Comets

Oct 2007

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007dps....39.5903k&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #39, #59.03; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 39, p.534

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The Kracht group contains 29 comets discovered in SOHO images from 1996-2005 with perihelion distances of 7-11 solar radii and inclinations of 12-15 degrees. Unlike the much more populous Kreutz sungrazing group, many Kracht comets are observed to survive perihelion, and as many as five may have been observed on two apparitions, with periods ranging from 4.8-5.8 years. Kracht comets tend to arrive in clusters followed by many months devoid of comets before another cluster arrives. Ohtsuka et al. (2003) and Sekanina and Chodas (2005) have shown that the Kracht group represents an evolutionary stage of the Machholz complex, which has evolved over many centuries and also includes 96P/Machholz, the Marsden group of comets, and the Arietids.
Here we explain the recent evolution of individual members of the Kracht group as a series of cascading fragmentations of a few large comets (causing the temporal clusters) which have had somewhat different orbital histories since splitting from each other within the last hundred years or so (causing the gaps between temporal clusters). We use dynamical simulations to search for possible fragmentation scenarios and to estimate the rate at which the orbital elements evolve due to the gravitational influence of the planets. We predict that 8 of the 19 fragments seen since 2002 may be observable in upcoming perihelion passages, including five that should reappear before the end of 2008. If observed, two of these will have been seen at three perihelion passages, allowing a rough estimation of the mass loss due to erosion.
This research was supported by NASA Planetary Atmospheres grant NNG06GF29G.

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