Jupiter family

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The Jupiter family is a group of more than 500  short-period comets .

This comet family is characterized by the fact that its members reach the greatest distance from the sun ( aphelion ) near the orbit of Jupiter . More precisely, the mean apheld distance of around 5.5  AU is slightly larger than that of Jupiter of 5.45 AU. The periods of rotation are between 5 and 11 years. The group formation is based on orbital disturbances due to the gravitation of Jupiter.

Well-known members of the family are the comets

Gravitational disturbances from planets, especially Jupiter, can change the orbits of comets and the like. U. change considerably. A systematic classification of comets is therefore based on the Tisserand parameter with respect to Jupiter: In this classification scheme a comet is assigned to the Jupiter family if its Tisserand parameter is between 2 and 2.8.

The disturbances of the other massive planets also resulted in comet families, which are, however, much smaller, as far as the numbers can be considered complete. Comet families of

The Jupiter family should not be confused with the Jupiter group - better known as Trojans , a group of asteroids whose mean distance from the Sun is similar to that of Jupiter.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hans-Heinrich Voigt: Outline of the astronomy . John Wiley & Sons, 2012, ISBN 978-3-527-40736-1 , pp. 139 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  2. ↑ List of Jupiter-Family and Halley-Family Comets: List of Jupiter-Family and Halley-Family Comets , accessed August 19, 2018
  3. ^ Lowry, Stephen & Fitzsimmons, Alan & Lamy, Philippe & Weissman, Paul. (2008). Kuiper Belt Objects in the Planetary Region: The Jupiter-Family Comets. The Solar System Beyond Neptune.
  4. ^ H. Levison: From the Kuiper Belt to Jupiter-Family Comets: The Spatial Distribution of Ecliptic Comets. In: Icarus. 127, p. 13, doi : 10.1006 / icar.1996.5637 .
  5. ↑ Uwe Meierhenrich: Comets And Their Origin The Tools To Decipher A Comet . John Wiley & Sons, 2014, ISBN 978-3-527-41279-2 , pp. 20 ( limited preview in Google Book search).