Distribution of Perihelia for SOHO Sungrazing Comets and the Prospective Groups

Abstract

A comet that passes extremely close to the Sun at perihelion is called a sungrazing comet (of sungrazer). Around 1270 sungrazing comets have been discovered on coronagraph images from the SOHO (SOlar and Heliospheric Observatory) spacecraft %since 1996. Up to date, the major groups orbiting since 1996 up to April, 2007. The major groups orbiting around the Sun in similar orbits are named as Kreutz, Meyer, Marsden, and Kracht1&2 families. About 85% of SOHO comets belong to the Kreutz family with perihelion distances of less than about 2˜3R_{⊙}. The distributions of perihelia and the orbital elements of SOHO sungrazing comets are analyzed. We investigated closely spaced pairs and clusters in the orbital element space. Here, we suggest three prospective groups of the sungrazing comets: [(C/2000 Y6, C/2000 Y7), (C/2000 V4, C/2001 T5), (C/2003 H6, C/2003 H7)].

Keywords

• Sungrazing come