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Rotation and free precession of the comet Halley nucleus
Author(s) -
Möhlmann D.
Publication year - 1989
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.2113100218
Subject(s) - halley's comet , precession , physics , comet , rotation (mathematics) , nucleus , angular velocity , astrophysics , angular momentum , rotation period , astronomy , classical mechanics , geometry , stars , mathematics , biology , microbiology and biotechnology
Rotational properties (rotation, precession) of the nucleus of comet Halley are investigated on the basis of image processing results of VEGA and GIOTTO and a compilation of recurrence periodicity of 71 events of activity of P/Halley in 1986. It is shown that the analysis of recurrence periodicity gives strong indications for the two periods of 2.2 days and 4.9 days. These periods are well compatible with the three known positions of the nucleus of comet Halley, as they were derived from image processing of the data of VEGA‐1 and ‐2 and GIOTTO. The resulting long‐axis mode of rotation and precession can be described by a 4.9 days rotation around the long axis which is precessing once around the total angular momentum vector M with a period of 2.2 days and with an angle θ 1 = 73° between the long axis and the spatially fixed M , while the angle ω 1 between the vector Ω of angular velocity and the long axis is given by ω 1 = 52°.