Reassessing the Source of Long-Period Comets

Details Reassessing the Source of Long-Period Comets Reassessing the Source of Long-Period Comets

2009-12-09

arxiv.org/abs/0912.1645v1

Science 4 September 2009

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics

Originally published in Science (9/4/09), 30 pages, 9 figures, main article and online material combined

Scientific paper

10.1126/science.1172676

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 via a largely unexplored dynamical pathway, and they are an important, if not the dominant, source of known LPCs. We use this LPC production to place observationally motivated constraints on the population and mass of the inner Oort Cloud, which are consistent with giant planet formation theory. These constraints indicate that only one comet shower producing late Eocene bombardment levels has likely occurred since the Cambrian Explosion, making these phenomena an improbable cause of additional extinction events.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

Reassessing the Source of Long-Period Comets 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 Reassessing the Source of Long-Period Comets, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Reassessing the Source of Long-Period Comets will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-275278