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Is Comet C/1853 E1 (Secchi) extrasolar?
Author(s) -
Branham R.L.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
astronomische nachrichten
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.394
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1521-3994
pISSN - 0004-6337
DOI - 10.1002/asna.201111636
Subject(s) - comet , physics , orbit (dynamics) , eccentricity (behavior) , astronomy , earth's orbit , orbital eccentricity , galactic tide , astrophysics , exoplanet , astrobiology , planet , galactic halo , halo , galaxy , political science , law , engineering , spacecraft , aerospace engineering
Abstract Comet C/1853 E1 (Secchi) has a hyperbolic orbit with eccentricity 1.01060 and perihelion outside of the Earth's orbit. Integrating the orbit with barycentric coordinates backwards to 50000 AU, the approximate edge of the Oort cloud, shows that the orbit remains hyperbolic. This is still true even if plutoids additional to Pluto are included in the integration. Nor does including Galactic tidal and disc effects and possible nongravitational forces change the orbit to a high eccentricity ellipse. Although certain factors, such as unknown massive plutoids, gravitational effects by interstellar gas clouds, or unmodelled nongravitational forces operating on the comet, could change this situation, the tentative conclusion that the origin of this comet is extrasolar remains the one most consistent with the observations (© 2011 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)