The comet disintegration and meteor streams

Extract

Possibility of disintegration of proto-comet nucleus of sungraser comets in three zones of Solar System predicted by one of authors is considered. Testing of parameters of 118 split comets confirms the basic idea. Results of the statistical analysis of comet outbursts gave us additional argument in favor of this assumption. Almost twenty years have passed since, as a result of the search for host phases of isotopically unusual noble gases, the first discovery in 1987 of surviving pre-solar minerals (diamond and silicon carbide) in primitive meteorites. These were followed by others (graphite, refractory oxides, silicon nitride, and finally silicates) in the years since. Pre-solar grains occur in even higher abundance than in meteorites in interplanetary dust particles (IDPs). The result is a kind of ‘new astronomy’ based on the study of pre-solar condensates with all the methods available in modern analytical laboratories.