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Re: (meteorobs) Meteor showers from non-periodic comets (Was Re: New Meteor Showers)
Perhaps there are several meteor showers caused by known
periodic comets which have yet to be discovered. I have the
Tau Herculids in my mind. There is a superb description and
observer accounts of this shower on Gary's website. The shower's
parent body is comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3. The
strongest return of this shower was in 1930, with something
like 100 meteors per hour (correct me if I'm wrong).
Another such shower might be caused by comet 141P/
Macholz 2, but it has been so far detected only by radio obervations
( twice, in 1994 and 1999).
And the June Bootids (meteoroids from comet 7P/Pons - Winnecke)
might show that a shower might freak out at any time. At the time
of the 1998 outburst, the orbit of the comet was 0.24 A.U. outside
Earth's orbit. This (again, correct me if I'm wrong) was caused
by gravitational influence of Jupiter on the orbit of meteoroids
(a more detailed description is available at IMO's site).
What I'm saying is, that a if a new shower is to be discovered, it
will likely be caused by a periodic comet.
As far as long period comets are concerned, there have been
several 'possible shower alerts' recently. One of this was the
Linearid shower. There were also possible (very minor) showers
from C/1995 O1 Hale-Bopp and C/1996 Q1 Tabur. I don't think
meteors from either of these two comets were ever recorded.
If a long-period comet should produce a new shower, it should
pass relatively close to Earth (C/1999 J3 LINEAR was close,
but not close enough) and possibly be rich in dust.
At the end I'd like to mention the Tau Herculids again. The
parent comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 split into
3 fragments during its last perihelion passage. There may
be a chance of a major shower occuring during the next
perihelion passage?
Clear skies!
Jure A.
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