C / 1911 S3 (Beljawsky)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
C / 1911 S3 (Beljawsky) [i]
Beljawsky Comet on October 19, 1911
Beljawsky Comet on October 19, 1911
Properties of the orbit ( animation )
Epoch:  October 11, 1911 ( JD 2,419,320.5)
Orbit type hyperbolic
(see article text)
Numerical eccentricity 1,00015
Perihelion 0.303 AU
Inclination of the orbit plane 96.5 °
Perihelion October 10, 1911
Orbital velocity in the perihelion 76.5 km / s
history
Explorer Sergei I. Belyavsky
Date of discovery September 29, 1911
Older name 1911 IV, 1911g
Source: Unless otherwise stated, the data comes from JPL Small-Body Database Browser . Please also note the note on comet articles .

C / 1911 S3 (Beljawsky) was a comet that could be seen with the naked eye in 1911 . Some consider it one of the " great comets ".

Discovery and observation

The comet was in the dawn of September 29th, 1911 by Sergei Ivanovich Beliavsky at the Observatory of simeiz on the peninsula Crimea discovered when he already has a brightness like 2.5 and a tail of 1 ° had. Shortly thereafter, there were other independent discoveries. The comet was closely observed in the following days, among others by Alexandre Schaumasse in Nice , Svante Elis Strömgren and Carl Frederick Pechüle in Copenhagen , Michel Giacobini in Paris , Alphonse Louis Nicolas Borrelly in Marseille and George Van Biesbroeck in Uccle . After its discovery, the comet moved east in the sky and could be observed with the naked eye from the end of September.

Around October 10, the comet passed the sun to the north and was visible in both the morning and evening skies for some time. At that time it could be seen in the western sky together with comet C / 1911 O1 (Brooks), which had been discovered 2 months earlier . At dusk on October 11, 1911, the two comets approached each other to a distance of about 20 °. From mid-October onwards, the Comet Beljawsky appeared deep on the western horizon in the twilight with a brightness of 1 mag, with a golden yellow head and a tail longer than 15 ° .

At the end of October, Comet Beljawsky was last observed with the naked eye as it moved southeast. Only at the end of January 1912 was the comet rediscovered from the southern hemisphere after passing south of the Sun again , but it could only be observed a few times from the observatory in Córdoba (Argentina) and the last position was determined there on February 17, 1912 .

The comet reached a maximum brightness of 1 mag.

Scientific evaluation

In 1951, orbital elements were determined for the first time that indicated that the comet was moving on a hyperbolic orbit. The comet thus attracted the interest of astronomers , who investigated the possible interstellar origin of the comets.

In a study from 1978, Marsden , Sekanina and Everhart found 66 observations over a period of 140 days for the original orbit before passing through the inner solar system, still a hyperbolic shape, but the orbital eccentricity was very close to 1, and an originally elliptical orbit was considered possible if non-gravitational influences had also been taken into account. For the future orbit of the comet, however, a closed elliptical shape with an orbital period of around 430,000 years has already been determined.

Although some astronomers suspected an interstellar origin of this comet, Kresák came to the conclusion in his assessment in 1992 that a possible hyperbolic orbit shape for the comet Beljawsky was based solely on the uncertainty of the orbit determination and that no interstellar origin could be assumed.

In a more recent study from 2014, Królikowska, among others, demonstrated that significant statements about the original and future orbit of the comet can only be made if, in addition to the gravitational disturbances from all planets , non-gravitational influences on the Calculation should be taken into account. The orbital elements determined by them from 162 observations over a period of 141 days therefore also contain a non-gravitational parameter. The calculations not only confirm the assumption that the comet's orbit was originally elliptical, but also result in an elliptical characteristic for the comet's future orbit with an orbital period of only a few tens of thousands of years.

Orbit

An orbit could be determined for the comet that is inclined by around 96 ° to the ecliptic . The comet's orbit is thus almost perpendicular to the planets' orbital plane. At the point of the orbit closest to the sun ( perihelion ), which the comet traversed on October 10, 1911, it was located at a distance of about 45.4 million km from the Sun in the area within the orbit of Mercury , which it was already on September 30 up to 23.2 million km had approached. On October 6th it had passed Venus at a distance of 100.4 million km and on the following day it had reached the closest approach to Earth with 0.97 AU / 145.0 million km .

The following statements are based on the non-gravitational orbital elements of Królikowska et al. Accordingly, the comet never moved on a hyperbolic, but long before it approached the inner solar system in 1911 on an extremely elongated elliptical orbit with an orbital eccentricity of about 0 , 99976 and a semi-major axis of about 1250 AU. It thus had an orbital period on the order of 45,000 years. Due to the gravitational pull of the planets, especially during a relatively close passage on May 12, 1912 at Jupiter in about 3½ AU distance, the eccentricity was reduced to a value of about 0.99969 and the semi-major axis to about 960 AU. The comet is likely to return to the inner solar system after about 30,000 years.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b C. Grubissich: Orbita definitiva della cometa 1911g (Beljawsky). In: Memorie della Società Astronomia Italiana. Vol. 22, 1951, pp. 251-267, bibcode : 1951MmSAI..22..251G .
  2. ^ John E. Bortle: International Comet Quarterly - The Bright-Comet Chronicles. Retrieved September 17, 2015 .
  3. ^ P. Moore, R. Rees: Patrick Moore's Data Book of Astronomy . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2011, ISBN 978-0-521-89935-2 , p. 271.
  4. ^ BG Marsden, Z. Sekanina, E. Everhart: New Osculating Orbits for 110 Comets and Analysis of Original Orbits for 200 Comets. In: The Astronomical Journal. Vol. 83, no. 1, 1978, pp. 64-71 doi: 10.1086 / 112177 .
  5. ↑ Ľ. Kresák: Are there any comets coming from interstellar space? In: Astronomy and Astrophysics. Vol. 259, 1992, pp. 682-691, bibcode : 1992A & A ... 259..682K .
  6. ^ Solar System Dynamics & Planetology Group: C / 1911 S3 Beljawsky. Retrieved September 21, 2015 .
  7. ^ A b M. Królikowska, G. Sitarski, EM Pittich, S. Szutowicz, K. Ziołkowski, H. Rickman, R. Gabryszewski, B. Rickman: New catalog of one-apparition comets discovered in the years 1901–1950. I. Comets from the Oort spike. In: Astronomy & Astrophysics. Vol. 571, A63, 2014, pp. 1-19 doi: 10.1051 / 0004-6361 / 201424329 PDF; 1.6 MB .
  8. ↑ C / 1911 S3 (Beljawsky) in the Small-Body Database of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (English).
  9. ↑ SOLEX 11.0 A. Vitagliano. Archived from the original on September 18, 2015 ; accessed on May 2, 2014 .