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Astron. Astrophys. 351, 752-758 (1999) 4. Relationship between the meteoroids of the 14P/Wolf and D/1892 T1 streamsThe number of similar (mutually identified) theoretical and actual
orbits at consecutive periods (outputs from numerical integration of
orbits of modelled particles), from 0 to
Table 1. The numbers of actually observed meteors associated with the `old' orbit (before 1922) of comet 14P/Wolf, which are identified with the modelled particles released by this comet. The numbers are given by 11 consecutive equidistant intervals beginning on May 3.56978, 1905 and ending on June 28.70888, 1987. The identification of each meteor from the IAU MDC database with
every modelled particles can seem to be unusual. However, we modelled
only the central part of the theoretical stream and the IAU MDC
database contains the data on a very small number of all meteors which
have appeared in the Earth's atmosphere. Therefore, one meteor in our
study, observed as modelled, is a representative of an entire "beam"
of meteors, which should have been modelled (if we knew the way how to
create an exact model and had sufficient computational facilities) or
have existed, respectively. An indication that the procedure used is
far from leading to random identification, comes from the fact that no
meteor could been identified for 7 comets (in the preliminary analysis
of 77 comets mentioned in Sect. 1) in spite of the particles of their
streams approached the Earth's orbit closer than
In the last three columns in Table 1, there are numbers of
modelled particles in the orbits within
The appropriate associated stream is modelled on May 3.61, 1905. After 1922, the comet finished contributing to that part of stream which approached the Earth's orbit: an analogous modelling in the case of new orbit, after 1922, shows that no modelled particle approaches the Earth's orbit and can be identified with any orbit of actually observed meteor. It is obvious seeing the large difference between the old and new orbits of the comet (Table 4). In Table 2, there are analogous numbers of meteor orbits as in
Table 1, but for comet D/1892 T1 (the meteors associated with
D/1892 T1). Here, the first modelled particles are moved to the orbits
similar to that of observed meteors after a period equal to
Table 2. The numbers of observed meteors associated with the orbit of comet D/1892 T1 (Barnard 3) which are identified with the modelled particles released by this comet. The structure of table and used notation is the same as in Table 1. Here, The mean orbital elements of observed meteors identified with the
modelled particles associated with comets 14P/Wolf, D/1892 T1, as well
as
45P/Honda-Mrkos-Pajdusáková
are given in Table 3. (The angular elements as well as
coordinates of radiants are, hereinafter, referred to the same equinox
as the angular elements and radiant coordinates in the utilized
photographic database, i.e. equinox 1950.0.) For a comparison, the
mean orbital elements of the
Table 3. The mean orbital elements of meteors identified with the modelled particles of theoretical streams associated with a given parent body (its name is given in the first column) as well as mean orbital elements of the Analyzing the radiants of individual meteors (see Sect. 5), it is
convenient to divide the stream associated with 14P/Wolf into two
strands: the upper corresponding to the stream of D/1892 T1 and the
lower corresponding to the
Now, let us analyze the relationship between the orbits of meteors associated with D/1892 T1 (Barnard 3) and those associated with 14P/Wolf. Both the comets had similar orbits before 1922 as is clear from their elements (compare lines 1 and 3 in Table 4). The nucleus of comet D/1892 T1 was probably a fragment of 14P/Wolf, separating sometime before 1892, which belonged to the common stream. Therefore, a coincidence of their streams can be expected. Actually, such coincidence is already observable comparing the mean orbital elements of upper strand of 14P/Wolf stream and D/1892 T1 stream (the first and second lines in Table 3). Table 4. The orbits of comets 14P/Wolf (before and after 1922) and D/1892 T1 (Barnard 3) referred to epoch Another proof of the coincidence can be seen in the list of the
meteors associated with comet D/1892 T1 given in Table 5. At each
meteor, there are presented the numbers of identifications of the
meteor with the modelled stream at the integration outputs. Three
terms correspond to the numbers for Table 5. The observed meteors (contained in the IAU Meteor Data Center database) associated with comet D/1892 T1 (Barnard 3) and their relationship to comets 14P/Wolf and 45P/Honda-Mrkos-Pajdusáková. Seeing Table 5, the stream of D/1892 T1 was active from the end of September to the end of October. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() © European Southern Observatory (ESO) 1999 Online publication: November 3, 1999 ![]() |