C / 1974 V2 (Bennett)

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C / 1974 V2 (Bennett) [i]
Properties of the orbit ( animation )
Epoch:  December 1, 1974 ( JD 2,442,383,0229)
Orbit type parabolic
Numerical eccentricity 1.0
Perihelion 0.865 AU
Inclination of the orbit plane 134.8 °
Perihelion 1st December 1974
Orbital velocity in the perihelion 45.3 km / s
history
Explorer JC Bennett
Date of discovery November 13, 1974
Older name 1974 XV, 1974h
Source: Unless otherwise stated, the data comes from JPL Small-Body Database Browser . Please also note the note on comet articles .

C / 1974 V2 (Bennett) was a comet that could be seen in 1974. As it approached the sun , it was observed to dissolve.

Discovery and observation

The comet was in the early morning of November 13, 1974 by the South African amateur astronomer John C. Bennett with a 125 mm - refractor in Pretoria discovered. He had been looking for a new comet for 482 hours since his last comet discovery in 1969. Bennett estimated the comet's brightness to be 9 mag and described it as diffuse and with no discernible tail . He was able to repeat his observation of the comet the following evening when the brightness had already risen to 8.5 mag.

Surprisingly, when Bennett observed again on November 18, the brightness had fallen back to below 10 mag. Apparently the comet had experienced an outbreak of brightness shortly before its discovery. Also Tsutomu Seki , who was able to observe the comet from Japan, described the drop in brightness.

The comet was closely observed by several observers in the southern and northern hemisphere in the second half of November , but its appearance became more and more diffuse during this time. Although the comet was rapidly approaching Earth and it was originally expected to reach a maximum magnitude of 6 mag, it instead became increasingly difficult to observe. Recordings from November 26th and a visual search during the total lunar eclipse on November 29th showed no clear signs of the comet, its brightness must have been below 12 mag at the time. Recordings from December 5th to 10th, when it was supposed to be closest to the earth, showed only faint, nebulous traces at the point where the comet would have been expected, and all subsequent attempts to discover traces of it remained without Result.

Orbit

For the comet, von Marsden from 15 observation data and von Nakano from 14 observation data each over a period of 11 days were able to determine very similar orbit elements of a parabolic orbit that is inclined by around 135 ° to the ecliptic . It thus ran in the opposite direction (retrograde) like the planets through its orbit. At the point of the orbit closest to the sun ( perihelion ), which the comet passed on December 1, 1974, it was located at a distance of 129.4 million km from the sun in the area between the orbits of Venus and Earth . On December 8th, it came close to Earth to within 0.31  AU / 46.7 million km. At this time, according to the observations, the comet was already dissolving.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ International Comet Quarterly: Split Comets. Retrieved May 31, 2016 .
  2. ^ J. Bennett: How I found comet 1974h. In: The Astronomer. Vol. 11, 1974, pp. 157-158 ( bibcode : 1974Astr ... 11..157B ).
  3. ^ BG Marsden, E. Roemer: Comets in 1974. In: Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society. Vol. 19, 1978, pp. 38-58 ( bibcode : 1978QJRAS..19 ... 38M ).
  4. ^ GW Kronk, M. Meyer: Cometography - A Catalog of Comets, Volume 5, 1960-1982 . Cambridge University Press, 2010, ISBN 978-0-521-87226-3 , pp. 434-436.
  5. ↑ NASA JPL Small-Body Database Browser: C / 1974 V2 (Bennett). Retrieved May 31, 2016 .
  6. ↑ A. Vitagliano: SOLEX 11.0. Archived from the original on September 18, 2015 ; accessed on May 2, 2014 .