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Re: (meteorobs) Meteor paths & southern hemisphere.
Thanks for your reply, Rob.
A couple of further thoughts;
What percentage of comet paths are relatively coplanar with earth?
Do we have any meteor shower 'pairs' resulting from the intersection of
earths orbit with one cometary trail?
I would be grateful for any info.
Thanks,
Stuart.
Rob McNaught wrote:
> On Fri, 29 Sep 2000, Stuart Saunders wrote:
>
> > All meteors, unless sporadics, are part of one or other cometary dust
> > trail. That dust trail must intersect the earths' orbit twice, both being
> > ellipses, unless they 'tangent'.
>
> Stuart,
> Two ellipses, with the Sun at one focus may intersect at 0, 1 or 2 points.
> A single point intersection is not only at a tangent. If you look at
> the orbital elements, you are likely to get 2 intersections if the
> perihelion distance (q) is inside the Earth's orbit and the inclination (i)
> is close to zero. This means the orbital plane of the meteoroids is
> in the same plane as the Earth' orbit. Alternatively, q is inside the
> Earth's orbit and the argument of perihelion (w, that is small omega) is
> close to 90 or 270 degrees. In that case, one intersection is north
> of the ecliptic and the other south.
>
> Cheers, Rob
>
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