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The Long-Term Dynamical Behavior of Small Bodies in the Kuiper Belt

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2017

Harold F. Levison
Harold F. Levison*
Affiliation:
Orbital Mechanics Department, U.S. Naval Observatory, Washington, DC 20392, USA

Extract

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Recent numerical calculations [1,2,3] have shown that Jupiter-family comets, which are on low inclination orbits, cannot originate from the gravitational scatter of long-period comets. Work by Quinn, Tremaine & Duncan [1] shows that objects originally on low-inclination, Neptune crossing orbits will evolve into a population of objects with orbital parameters consistent with those of Jupiter-family comets. However, they point out that the timescale to deplete this initial population of planet-crossing objects is short. Therefore, they conclude there must be a system of objects that are evolving into planet-crossers on the timescale of the age of the solar system. The most likely source of these objects is a region just beyond the orbit of Neptune, the Kuiper belt.

Type
Part V - Comets
Information
Symposium - International Astronomical Union , Volume 152: Chaos, Resonance and Collective Dynamical Phenomena in the Solar System , 1992 , pp. 275 - 279
Copyright
Copyright © Kluwer 1992 

References

1. Quinn, T., Tremaine, S. & Duncan, M.: 1990, Ap.J. 355, 667.Google Scholar
2. Duncan, M. Quinn, T. & Tremaine, S.: 1988, Ap.J. Lett. 328,L69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
3. Joss, P.C.: 1973, Astron. Astrophys. 25, 271.Google Scholar
4. Levison, H.F.: 1991, Astron. J. 102, 787.CrossRefGoogle Scholar