Friday, June 1, 2012

1205.6874 (I. Ferrín et al.)

"The 2009 Apparition of Methuselah Comet 107P/Wilson-Harrington: A Case of Comet Rejuvenation?"    [PDF]

I. Ferrín, Hiromi Hamanowa, Hiroko Hamanowa, J. Hernández, E. Sira, A. Sánchez, H. Zhao, R. Miles
(1) We find that comet 107P/WH was active in 1949, 1979, 1992, 2005, and 2009. (2) Its age can be measured. We find T-AGE=4700 comet years, WB-AGE=7800 cy. (3) This is a methuselah comet very near to its dormancy phase, being temporarily rejuvenated due to a diminution of its perihelion distance. (4) We measured the diameter as Deffe=3.67\pm0.06 km, and the rotational period, Prot=6.093\pm0.002 h. (5) We define the region of the graveyard of comets, and three comets belong to the graveyard: 107P/Wilson-Harrington, 133P/Elst-Pizarro and D/1891W1 Blanpain.
View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1205.6874

No comments:

Post a Comment