Motion of Comet D/Shoemaker-Levy 9 before the Breakup

Details Motion of Comet D/Shoemaker-Levy 9 before the Breakup Motion of Comet D/Shoemaker-Levy 9 before the Breakup

Apr 1995

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1995aca....45..419s&link_type=abstract

Acta Astronomica, v.45, pp.419-428, (1995).

Statistics

Computation

3

Comets: General, Comets: Individual: Shoemaker-Levy9

Scientific paper

We collected astrometric observations of 19 fragments of the comet to determine separate orbits for 19 comet's nuclei. All the computations have been carried out in jovicentric rectangular coordinates; we included the solar and planetary perturbations, the perturbations due to oblateness of Jupiter and due to the Galilean jovian satellites. All the nuclei passed through the perijove almost simultaneously in 1992 July 7.8 at a distance amounting to 1.3 of Jupiter's equatorial radii. We assumed that motion of the center of mass of the comet's nuclei may represent the motion of the comet before its breakup near Jupiter in July 1992. We used values of diameters published for all the fragments of the comet to estimate relative masses of the nuclei, and accepted an earlier published result according to which the comet was disrupted 2.2 hours after its perijove time. We computed coordinates and velocity components for the center of mass of the nuclei, and thus we found the jovicentric orbit of the comet's parent body for 1992 July 7.921 ET. Equations of the jovicentric motion of the comet have been integrated back to 1990 Jan. 29 when the comet was about 1 a.u. from Jupiter, then the jovicentric hyperbolic orbit was transformed to the heliocentric one. We got the following elements of the osculating heliocentric orbit of the comet: Epoch: 1990 Jan. 29.0 ET, Equinox: J2000.0 T=1992 Nov. 9.429 ET omega=354.328 arcdeg q=5.5871 a.u. Omega=182.888 e=0.11793 i =4.674 a=6.3340 a.u. P =15.94 years We investigated the heliocentric motion of the comet before 1992. Evolution of jovicentric and heliocentric trajectories of the comet is presented graphically.

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