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More comets towards Alpha Centauri?
I was hoping to find out if we would encounter more comets and
interstellar debris on a hypothetical journey going out from our solar system in the direction of Alpha Centauri, compared to any other direction. This is a point which I theorise in my research article at:- http://uk.geocities.com/aa_spaceagen...ropulsion.html Going out from the Sun in the direction of Alpha Centauri, at around (c. 70,000 - 120,000 AUs solar distance), where the individual gravitational spheres of influence of the Sun and Alpha Centauri intersect and merge into each other, the orbital speeds of any comets slow right down. So is it feasible to assume they would concentrate in a 'pool' in this region hanging in a gravity equilibrium between both systems? Based on an analysis of the arrival and departure trajectories of all non-periodic comets in and out of our solar system over the past 300 years, is it possible to show that a greater (statistically significant) number come from the general direction of Alpha Centauri, compared to all other directions in the sky? If we analys all comets with orbital eccentricity, e 0.99 (very long periodic) to e = 1 (parabolic, hyperbolic never returning), then it may just show some results that can confirm this. Where can I find a list of all comets and orbital data over past 300 years? Quote of the assertions in my article:- "The "mid-range" which I refer to here, is a *gravitational* mid range centered on approx. 90,000 AUs solar distance - a third of the total linear distance separating our Sun from Alpha Centauri. At that distance, an object's orbital period, given by Kepler's 3rd law:- a^3 = k * T^2 [ where a = semi-major axis of orbit, T = orbital period and k = Gaussian gravitational constant ] would be no less than 27 million years! Since this territory is effectively a "no man's land", where an object would be equally gravitationally perturbed by both systems, it is quite conceivable that material could accumulate here and more comets and icy debris could be encountered on a voyage going towards Alpha Centauri compared to any other direction. " [[Mod. note -- You might also want to try posting over in sci.space.science, as a lot of planetary-science people seem to read/post there. -- jt]] |
#2
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[[Mod. note -- Very-excessively-quoted text trimmed; posters, please
do this yourself. -- jt]] "Abdul Ahad" wrote in message ... Going out from the Sun in the direction of Alpha Centauri, at around (c. 70,000 - 120,000 AUs solar distance), where the individual gravitational spheres of influence of the Sun and Alpha Centauri intersect and merge into each other, the orbital speeds of any comets slow right down. So is it feasible to assume they would concentrate in a 'pool' in this region hanging in a gravity equilibrium between both systems? The gravitation null point (perhaps not the official term) between two massive objects is a saddle--basically it's unstable to small perturbations. So its unlikely any objects will congregate there. If the stars are orbiting each other, the Lagrangian points may come into play, but A Cen and the sun are only orbiting the centre of the galaxy, not each other. |
#3
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On Fri, 3 Sep 2004, Abdul Ahad wrote:
I was hoping to find out if we would encounter more comets and interstellar debris on a hypothetical journey going out from our solar system in the direction of Alpha Centauri, compared to any other direction. In addition to any effect causing comets thenselves to concentrate in the direction of Alpha Centauri, would gases concentrate in this region and thus tend to accrete more material onto the comets? Thus you might have more and/or larger comets. 3ch [[Mod. note -- As another poster has pointed out, there's no reason to expect *any* concentration in this region -- it's an *unstable* "saddle point" of the gravitational field. -- jt]] |
#4
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[[Mod. note -- Very-excessively-quoted text trimmed; posters, please
do this yourself. -- jt]] "Abdul Ahad" wrote in message ... Going out from the Sun in the direction of Alpha Centauri, at around (c. 70,000 - 120,000 AUs solar distance), where the individual gravitational spheres of influence of the Sun and Alpha Centauri intersect and merge into each other, the orbital speeds of any comets slow right down. So is it feasible to assume they would concentrate in a 'pool' in this region hanging in a gravity equilibrium between both systems? As far as I am aware, there is no extra concentration of orbit major axes of "first-time" comets in the direction of Alpha Cen. There was a proposal a couple of years ago by John Murray that there was an excess of these towards somewhere in the N hemisphere but the result is disputable. It is unlikely that Alpha Cen is perturbing currently viewed comets towards the solar system. The Sun and Alpha Cen are moving past one another fast enough that the encounter is much shorter than the period of a 90000 AU object. -- Mike Dworetsky (Remove "pants" spamblock to send e-mail) |
#5
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On Sat, 4 Sep 2004, Hynee wrote:
"Abdul Ahad" wrote in message ... Going out from the Sun in the direction of Alpha Centauri, at around (c. 70,000 - 120,000 AUs solar distance), where the individual gravitational spheres of influence of the Sun and Alpha Centauri intersect and merge into each other, the orbital speeds of any comets slow right down. Would it slow down tho? Wouldn't the gravitational potential be deeper and thus the object have -more- KE? --Consider an object traveling straight toward Alpha Centauri. Normally it would have decelerated a certain amount at a certain distance but now AC has also accelerated it toward itself, so it would not have slowed as much as it would have w/o AC's influence (and will start accelerating toward AC if it travels far enough). So is it feasible to assume they would concentrate in a 'pool' in this region hanging in a gravity equilibrium between both systems? The gravitation null point (perhaps not the official term) between two massive objects is a saddle--basically it's unstable to small perturbations. For a stationary or orbiting object, but I believe the question was concerning objects passing through which slow down & spend more time in a region, --like a planet tends to spend more time further from the primary (and at a higher potential). 3ch |
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