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(meteorobs) Possible meteor shower discovery!



Greetings to you all!

I am new in this list.  I subscribed after an invitation from Dr. Julian
Chela Flores.

I wanted to write to you with regards to a possible discovery of a Meteor
Shower I made.  Firstly I would like to talk to you a little about my
astronomy work:  I am responsible for the comet finder charts and orbit
diagrams published at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Comet Observation
Homepage.  Since 1999 I have published  finder charts and orbit diagrams for
almost every new comet.

Well, a new comet was recently discovered.  IAUC 7546 (December 20, 2000)
and MPEC 2000-Y20 (December 20, 2000) announced the discovery of C/2000 WM1
(LINEAR) that has the potential to reach naked-eye brightness less than a
year from now.  After I read the reports, I began to do some basic orbital
analysis.  During the analysis, I found out that the ascending node of the
comet's orbit was very close to the Earth's orbit.  Then I simulated the
movement of the comet and the Earth.  First, the comet crosses its orbit's
ascending node.  Some months later the Earth arrives to the closest point to
the comet's ascending node.  At this time it is probable to watch a meteor
shower produced by the recently discovered frozen body.

I find this event very exciting because it could provide us with a good
research opportunity to study the composition of a long period comet.
C/2000 WM1 (LINEAR) is estimated to have a period of 13,078,996 years.
Meteoroids coming from this comet could show us the composition of its
nucleus, telling us about the chemical elements and compounds that were
present during the formation of our Solar System.

I invite you all to visit my web page about C/2000 WM1 (LINEAR) , look at
the simulations and send your comments to the list or to my e-mail.

http://gdrayer.tripod.com/WM1/WM1sim.htm

Best regards,

Gregorio Drayer

Gregorio E. Drayer-Andrade
URL: http://gdrayer.tripod.com
ICQ: 30796030
Cellular: +58 12 229 7777
Plasma Lab: +58 212 906 3564
Home: +58 212 941 5878

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