Non-gravitational forces and masses of some long-period comets. The cases of Hale-Bopp and Hyakutake
Abstract
By means of a simple non-gravitational force model of the cometary nucleus, which relies on the observed light curves assumed to be a good representation of the water sublimation rate, we estimate the masses of a sample of long-period comets (LPCs).
A critical issue of our method is the assumption of a correlation between visual heliocentric magnitudes and water production rates. This is a necessary assumption because of the sparse observational data of gas production rates (with the exception of very few comets like Hale-Bopp or Hyakutake). In this regard we present here a new correlation for LPCs. We also present the preliminary results for the masses of comets Hale-Bopp and Hyakutake.- Publication:
-
Icy Bodies of the Solar System
- Pub Date:
- 2010
- DOI:
- 10.1017/S1743921310001547
- Bibcode:
- 2010IAUS..263...85S
- Keywords:
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- Comets: general;
- methods: analytical;
- data analysis