Capture Statistics of Short-Period Comets: Implications for Comet D/Shoemaker–Levy 9

Kary, D. M.; Dones, L.

doi:10.1006/icar.1996.0082

Cited by 54 publications

(65 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…A similar "temporary capture" has happened to comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 before its tidal disruption and impact on Jupiter (Kary & Dones 1996), and was likely important during capture of Jupiter's irregular satellites (Ćuk & Burns 2004). Temporary capture typically begins and ends when the stars are at periastron, so the less massive star's Hill sphere is at its smallest.…”

Section: Numerical Testmentioning

confidence: 87%

1I/‘Oumuamua as a Tidal Disruption Fragment from a Binary Star System

Ćuk

2018

ApJL

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ABSTRACT1I/'Oumuamua is the first known interstellar small body (Bacci et al. 2017), probably being only about 100 m in size. Against expectations based on comets, 'Oumuamua does not show any activity and has a very elongated figure (Meech et al. 2017), and also exhibits undamped rotational tumbling . In contrast, 'Oumuamua's trajectory indicates that it was moving with the local stars, as expected from a low-velocity ejection from a relatively nearby system (Mamajek 2017). Here I assume that 'Oumuamua is typical of 100-m interstellar objects, and speculate on its origins. I find that giant planets are relatively inefficient at ejecting small bodies from inner solar systems of main-sequence stars, and that binary systems offer a much better opportunity for ejections of non-volatile bodies. I also conclude that 'Oumuamua is not a member of a collisional population, which could explain its dramatic difference from small asteroids. I observe that 100-m small bodies are expected to carry little mass in realistic collisional populations, and that occasional events when whole planets are disrupted in catastrophic encounters may dominate interstellar population of 100-m fragments. Unlike the Sun or Jupiter, red dwarf stars are very dense and are capable of thoroughly tidally disrupting terrestrial planets. I conclude that the origin of 'Oumuamua as a fragment from a planet that was tidally disrupted and then ejected by a dense member of a binary system could explain its peculiarities.

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Section: Numerical Testmentioning

confidence: 87%

1I/‘Oumuamua as a Tidal Disruption Fragment from a Binary Star System

Ćuk

2018

ApJL

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“…In its 1992 encounter with Jupiter SL9 had a diameter of 1.5-1.8 km (Asphaug and Benz, 1996), and in 1994 the largest fragments were roughly 1 km in diameter (Zahnle, 1996). Whether SL9 should be counted once, twice, or 20 times is open to debate, but Kary and Dones (1996) did show through dynamical simulations that only one time in 50 does a comet caught in temporary orbit about Jupiter make successive close encounters terminating in a collision. Scotti (1998) observed P/Gehrels 3 to have the reflectance spectrum of a D-type asteroid, which makes the deduced diameter [3 km according to Scotti, 4 km according to Tancredi et al (2001)] seem sound.…”

Section: The Historical Recordmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cratering rates in the outer Solar System

Zahnle

Schenk

Levison

et al. 2003

Icarus

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545

738

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This paper is a compilation by table, graph, and equation of impact cratering rates from Jupiter to Pluto. We use several independent constraints on the number of ecliptic comets. Together they imply that the impact rate on Jupiter by 1.5-km-diameter comets is currentlyϩ0.006 per annum. Other kinds of impactors are currently unimportant on most worlds at most sizes. The size-number distribution of impactors smaller than 20 km is inferred from size-number distributions of impact craters on Europa, Ganymede, and Triton; while the size-number distribution of impacting bodies larger than 50 km is equated to the size-number distribution of Kuiper Belt objects. The gap is bridged by interpolation. It is notable that small craters on Jupiter's moons indicate a pronounced paucity of small impactors, while small craters on Triton imply a collisional population rich in small bodies. However it is unclear whether the craters on Triton are of heliocentric or planetocentric origin. We therefore consider two cases for Saturn and beyond: a Case A in which the size-number distribution is like that inferred at Jupiter, and a Case B in which small objects obey a more nearly collisional distribution. Known craters on saturnian and uranian satellites are consistent with either case, although surface ages are much younger in Case B, especially at Saturn and Uranus. At Neptune and especially at Saturn our cratering rates are much higher than rates estimated by Shoemaker and colleagues, presumably because Shoemaker's estimates mostly predate discovery of the Kuiper Belt. We also estimate collisional disruption rates of moons and compare these to estimates in the literature.

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“…The rate at which Saturn would encounter such massive clouds is quite uncertain, but consider the specific scenario where a 1-km-wide comet nucleus was captured into orbit around Saturn and broke apart during a close periapse passage (due to planetary tides or a collision with the rings), producing~10 12 kg of debris on bound orbits that crashed into the rings on a later periapse (14). Although the rate at which captured cometary debris impacts Saturn has not yet been thoroughly investigated in numerical simulations, existing studies indicate that roughly 4% of the comets that impact Jupiter had previously passed close enough to the planet to be disrupted (15), the impact flux at Saturn is about 40% the flux at Jupiter (16,17), and the fraction of impactors on bound orbits is about an order of magnitude less for Saturn than it is for Jupiter (18)(19)(20). Together, these results indicate that Saturn should encounter debris clouds derived from comets disrupted by previous planetary encounters at a rate that is roughly 0.2% of Jupiter's impact rate.…”

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confidence: 99%