C / 1864 N1 (temple)
| C / 1864 N1 (temple) [i] | |
|---|---|
| Properties of the orbit ( animation ) | |
| Orbit type | long-period |
| Numerical eccentricity | 0.9964 |
| Perihelion | 0.9093 AU |
| Aphelion | 497.5 AU |
| Major semi-axis | 249.2 AU |
| Sidereal period | ~ 3930 a |
| Inclination of the orbit plane | 178.1 ° |
| Perihelion | August 16, 1864 |
| Orbital velocity in the perihelion | 44.1 km / s |
| history | |
| Explorer | EWL temple |
| Date of discovery | 4th July 1864 |
| Older name | 1864 II |
| Source: Unless otherwise stated, the data comes from JPL Small-Body Database Browser . Please also note the note on comet articles . | |
C / 1864 N1 (Temple) was a comet that could be seen with the naked eye in 1864 . It was the first comet whose light spectrum was observed.
Discovery and observation
The comet was first discovered on July 4, 1864 by Ernst Wilhelm Leberecht Tempel with a telescope in the garden of his house in Marseille . The following day there was an independent discovery by Lorenzo Respighi in Bologna .
The comet was also observed by the American astronomer Horace Parnell Tuttle during his military service in the Civil War .
The comet could be observed with the naked eye in the first half of August, the last position determinations were made at the end of September. It reached a brightness of 2.5 mag.
Scientific evaluation
The comet temple from 1864 occupies a special position in comet research because it was the first comet whose spectrum was observed. Giambattista Donati in Florence was the first astronomer to use a prism to split the light of a comet into its colors. In his day it was still believed that the comets only shone through reflected sunlight. When, on August 5, 1864, he compared the spectrum of the comet's light with that of a flame, he found three faintly luminous bands that showed that the comet was emitting its own light. A few years later, Sir William Huggins demonstrated that these emissions originate from hydrocarbon compounds that are apparently contained in the gases of the coma and the comet's tail .
Orbit
From 206 observations over a period of 78 days, only a limited precise elliptical orbit could be determined for the comet, which is inclined by around 178 ° to the ecliptic . The orbit of the comet is almost exactly in the plane of the planets, but the comet runs in the opposite direction to the planets. At the point of the orbit closest to the sun ( perihelion ), which the comet passed on August 16, 1864, it was located at about 136.0 million km from the sun in the area between the orbits of Venus and Earth . On July 14th it had already passed Mars in about 48.2 million km , while on August 8th it reached the closest approach to Earth with only 0.096 AU / 14.4 million km. The comet is one of the 30 closest comets to earth by 2006. On August 31, it hit Mercury at a distance of about 74.4 million km and on September 30 at a distance of about 75.6 million km the Venus over.
The comet moves in an extremely elongated elliptical orbit around the sun. According to the orbital elements , which are afflicted with a certain uncertainty, its orbit before its passage through the inner solar system in 1864 still had an eccentricity of about 0.9957 and a semi-major axis of about 215 AU, so that its orbital period was about 3150 years. Due to the gravitational pull of the planets, however, its orbital eccentricity was increased to around 0.9964 and its semi-major axis to around 248 AU, so that its orbital period increased to around 3900 years. When it reaches the point of its orbit furthest from the sun ( aphelion ) around the year 3800 , it will be around 74 billion km away from the sun, almost 500 times as far as the earth and 16½ times as far as Neptune . Its orbital speed in aphelion is only about 0.07 km / s. The comet's next perihelion passage may occur around the year 5800.
The comet in lyrics
The British lyric poet of the Victorian era Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote a poetic fragment on September 13, 1864. He was probably still under the impression of the comet Tempel that appeared a few weeks earlier:
- I am like a slip of comet,
Scarce worth discovery, in some corner seen
Bridging the slender difference of two stars,
Come out of space, or suddenly engender'd
By heady elements, for no man knows:
But when she sights the sun she grows and sizes
And spins her skirts out, while her central star
Shakes its cocooning mists; and so she comes
To fields of light; millions of traveling rays
Pierce her; she hangs upon the flame-cased sun,
And sucks the light as full as Gideon's fleece:
But then her tether calls her; she falls off,
And as she dwindles shreds her smock of gold
Amidst the sistering planets, till she comes
To single Saturn, last and solitary;
And then goes out into the cavernous dark.
So I go out: my little sweet is done:
I have drawn heat from this contagious sun:
To not ungentle death now forth I run.
See also
Individual evidence
- ^ S. Bianchi, A. Gasperini, D. Galli, F. Palla, P. Benni, A. Giatti: Wilhelm Tempel and His 10.8-cm Steinheil Telescope. In: Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage. Vol. 13, No. 1, 2010, pp. 43-58. ( bibcode : 2010JAHH ... 13 ... 43B ).
- ↑ Simostronomy - The Stories Behind the August Perseids. Retrieved July 14, 2015 .
- ^ P. Moore, R. Rees: Patrick Moore's Data Book of Astronomy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2011, ISBN 978-0-521-89935-2 , p. 265.
- ^ D. Leverington: Babylon to Voyager and Beyond: A History of Planetary Astronomy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2003, ISBN 978-0-521-80840-8 , p. 197.
- ↑ C / 1864 N1 (Tempel) in the Small-Body Database of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (English).
- ^ NASA Near Earth Object Program: Historic Comet Close Approaches. Retrieved July 14, 2015 .
- ↑ SOLEX 11.0 A. Vitagliano. Archived from the original on September 18, 2015 ; accessed on May 2, 2014 .
- ^ David H. Levy: Poet and Observer: Gerard Manley Hopkins and some mid-19th Century Comets. In: Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada . Vol. 75, no. 3, 1981, pp. 139-150. ( bibcode : 1981JRASC..75..139L ).