Short-Period Comets: Primordial Bodies or Collisional Fragments?

Details Short-Period Comets: Primordial Bodies or Collisional Fragments? Short-Period Comets: Primordial Bodies or Collisional Fragments?

Aug 1996

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1996sci...273..938f&link_type=abstract

Science, Volume 273, Issue 5277, pp. 938-941

Physics

89

Scientific paper

Modeling results show that collisions among Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt Objects (EKOs), a vast swarm of small bodies orbiting beyond Neptune, have been a major process affecting this population and its progeny, the short-period comets. Most EKOs larger than about 100 kilometers in diameter survive over the age of the solar system, but at smaller sizes collisional breakup is frequent, producing a cascade of fragments having a power law size-frequency distribution. Collisions are also a plausible mechanism for injecting EKOs 1 to 10 kilometers in diameter into dynamical resonances, where they can be transported into the inner solar system to become short-period comets. The fragmental nature of these comets may explain their physical properties, such as shape, color, and strength.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

Short-Period Comets: Primordial Bodies or Collisional Fragments? does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Short-Period Comets: Primordial Bodies or Collisional Fragments?, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Short-Period Comets: Primordial Bodies or Collisional Fragments? will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-774701