Comet ‘Gateway’ Discovered To Inner Solar System

Eddie Gonzales Jr. – MessageToEagle.com – Researchers report the discovery of an orbital “gateway” through which many comets pass before they approach our sun.

The gateway was uncovered as part of a simulation of centaurs, small icy bodies traveling on chaotic orbits between Jupiter and Neptune.

An artist-rendered image of what Centaur SW1 would look like as an inner solar system Jupiter-Family comet at a distance of 0.2 AU (30 million km, 19 million miles) from Earth. The Moon is in the upper right part of the frame for scale. Credit: University of Arizona/Heather Roper.

A University of Central Florida researcher Gal Sarid and his team modeled the evolution of bodies from beyond Neptune’s orbit, through the giant planet’s region, and inside Jupiter’s orbit. These icy bodies are considered nearly pristine remnants of material from the birth of our solar system, according to a press release.

“How do new comets, controlled by Jupiter’s influence, replace those that are lost? Where is the transition between residing in the outer solar system, as small dormant bodies, and becoming active inner solar system bodies, exhibiting a widespread gas and dust coma and tail?” the lead scientist for the study, Sarid asks.

“What we discovered, the gateway model as a ‘cradle of comets,’ will change the way we think about the history of icy bodies.”

Centaurs are thought to originate in the Kuiper Belt region beyond Neptune and are considered as the source of Jupiter Family Comets, which occupy the inner solar system. The chaotic nature of centaur orbits obscures their exact pathways making it difficult to predict their future as comets. When icy bodies such as centaurs or comets approach the sun, they begin to release gas and dust to produce the fuzzy appearance of the coma and extended tails that we refer to as comets.

The original goal of the investigation was to explore the history of a peculiar centaur– 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 1 (SW1), a mid-sized centaur in a nearly circular orbit just beyond Jupiter. SW1 has long puzzled astronomers with its high activity and frequent explosive outbursts that occur at a distance from the sun where ice should not effectively vaporize.

Both its orbit and activity put SW1 in an evolutionary middle ground between the other centaurs and the Jupiter Family Comets. The research team wanted to explore whether SW1’s circumstances were consistent with the orbital progression of the other centaurs, according to Sarid.

Paper

Written by Eddie Gonzales Jr. – MessageToEagle.com Staff