Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-12T21:48:13.902Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

No Meteor Storms Expected from P/Machholz 2

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 February 2018

D.J. Asher
Affiliation:
National Astronomical Observatory, Mitaka, Tokyo 181, Japan
D.I. Steel
Affiliation:
The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA 5005, Australia

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

P/1994 P1 Machholz 2 is the first Earth-crossing shortperiod comet to have been observed to have split since 3D/Biela about 150 years ago, and that fragmentation resulted in the Andromedid meteor storms of 1872 and 1885. Thus a pertinent question is whether meteor storms might result from P/Machholz 2 in the foreseeable future. Here we integrate its orbit to ascertain when the node might next occur near a heliocentric distance of 1 AU, and find that this is not anticipated far over 1000yr, although some meteor activity in ∽300yr is possible. On such time-scales the recently-released debris will have dispersed, so that meteor storms are not expected from this comet.

Type
III. Meteoroid Streams
Copyright
Copyright © Astronomical Society of the Pacific 1996

References

Asher, D.J. and Steel, D.I. 1996, MNRAS, in press.Google Scholar
Babadzhanov, P.B. and Obrubov, Yu.V. 1992, Cel. Mech. Dyn. Astron., 54, 111 Google Scholar
Babadzhanov, P.B., Wu, Z., Williams, I.P. and Hughes, D.W. 1991, MNRAS 253, 69 Google Scholar
Kresák, L. 1993, in Meteoroids and their parent bodies, Štohl, J. and Williams, I.P., Bratislava: Astron. Inst., Slovak Acad. Sci., 147 Google Scholar
Steel, D.I. 1994, in IAU Symp. 160: Asteroids, Comets, Meteors 1993, Milani, A. Di Martino, M. and Cellini, A., Dordrecht: Kluwer, 111 Google Scholar