Why Halley-Types Resonate but Long-Period Comets Don't: A Dynamical Distinction between Short- and Long-Period Comets

Details Why Halley-Types Resonate but Long-Period Comets Don't: A Dynamical Distinction between Short- and Long-Period Comets Why Halley-Types Resonate but Long-Period Comets Don't: A Dynamical Distinction between Short- and Long-Period Comets

Jan 1997

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1997icar..125...32c&link_type=abstract

Icarus, Volume 125, Issue 1, pp. 32-38.

Physics

9

Scientific paper

Several recent studies have noted that the orbital evolution of many comets is influenced by mean-motion resonances with Jupiter. However, the distribution and relative importance of these resonances and the orbital characteristics of the comets affected have not been addressed to date. Here I show analytically that cometary orbits with periods greater than a critical value, P_c, (which depends upon the orbital inclination) are prevented from undergoing librations about a mean-motion resonance. Conversely, numerical integrations indicate that resonances play an important role in the dynamics of comets with P < P_c. The inclination-averaged value of P_c approximately coincides with the traditional and arbitrary dividing line between Halley-type and long-period comets, which explains why many of the former are currently observed to be in resonance, whereas the latter are not. Thus, we now have a dynamical justification for separating comets into those of short and long period.

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