Astronomical School’s Report, 2003, Volume 4, Issue 2, Pages 43–54

https://doi.org/10.18372/2411-6602.04.2043
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UDC 523.6

Origin of comets

Shul’man L.M.

Main Astronomical Observatory NAS of Ukraine

Abstract

Three basic conceptions of origin of comets are under discussion. The first one belongs to Laplace who supposed that comets are becoming the members of the Solar system being captured by a giant planet, e.g. Jupiter. It is the hypothesis of capture. Oort supposed that there is a giant cloud of cometary nuclei at the heliocentric distance ∼105 AU. To become observable a cometary nucleus has to change its orbit twice: once under a gravitational perturbation from a near passing star and then from a giant planet. The second hypothesis was proposed by Lagrange, who supposed that cometary nuclei are result of volcanic eruptions on the surfaces of giant planets. This is the eruptive hypothesis. Some astronomers negated the eruptive hypothesis because too powerful gravity at the ’surfaces’ of these planets. Vsekhsviatsky overridden this objection by the idea that the eruptions took place not on the planets themselves but on their satellites. Drobyshevsky proposed a mechanism of this volcanism. This mechanism is an explosion of hydrogen-and-oxygen mixture which has been created and accumulated inside the body of a satellite by electrolysis in the electric field induced by orbiting of the satellite in the magnetic field of Jupiter. Olbers supposed that cometary nuclei may be formed simultaneously with formation of all the Solar system bodies. Kameron developed a quantitative theory of formation of the Solar system. At the periphery of the Solar system (100–5000 AU) small icy bodies, i.e. cometesimals, must grow. The inelastic collisions between of the cometesimals formed non-spherical bodies, i.e. cometary nuclei. The most probable region of growth of cometary nuclei is the Kuiper belt. One can see that these three hypotheses are not in implacable contradiction. Really, the long periodic comets may be formed in the Kuiper belt while some short periodic comets may be erupted by volcanoes on the satellites of the giant planets.

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