The development of brightness outburst of comet Holmes – model and observations

Abstract

In this paper the development of brightness outburst of comet 17Р/Holmes is considered, detected in October 2007. Authors consider the comet disintegration process as isotropic ejection of solid fraction of comet nucleus at any point along the orbit of celestial body under consideration with a set ejection velocities range. Modeling results allow to reveal the trends in orbital elements changes of ejected fragments and to construct the general picture of space fulfillment by orbits of studied object's disintegration products at a calculation time span, to check the possibility of comet and meteor showers connection. This technology was applied for consideration of comet Holmes life cycle. By using the obtained orbital elements of the comet, authors modeled the comet nucleus disintegration for all the 17 revolutions and got the possible meteoroid complex for comet 17Р/Holmes.

Keywords

• comet 17P/Holmes
• brightness outburst
• meteoroid complex
• comet Holmes life cycle