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RE: (meteorobs) Perseid stream spread (was: NAMN Notes: July 1999)
Hi,
> Lew: May I take a wild stab at this? Could it possibly be due to
> perturbations caused by Earth's passage through the stream each year? The
> orbit of the meteoroids is so highly inclined to the ecliptic, and it has
> such high eccentricity, I don't think we can blame perturbations on any of
> the large planets.
I'm not an expert, but I don't think Earth has a major effect on the
distribution of meteoroids, since the mass of Earth is much too low.
To my understanding the main reason is the ejection process of meteoroids
from the comet's nucleus: They are ejected with all types of different
velocities in different directions with respect to the motion of the
comet. Hence, each particle moves along it's own orbits, and what we see
at Earth is a distribution of orbits and a radiant with a certain size. In
addition, the radiation pressure is certainly not constant for all types
of particles with different mass and shape, causing a slow dispersion of
the meteoroid stream .
Cheers, Sirko
--
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