Abstract

We explain the anomalous outburst activity of comet 29P/Schwassmann–Wachmann 1 by the existence of satellites touching the surface of the comet nucleus at the pericenters of their orbits. It is assumed that the satellites move in eccentric orbits and a large amount of dust, the reflection of light from which causes periodic outbursts in brightness (BAA 2023), is ejected as a result of their collisions with the dust layer of the nucleus. Depending on the depth of penetration of the satellites into the dust layer, outbursts in comet brightness of various intensities occur. An improvement of the comet orbit by invoking positional observations allows the preferred direction of the ejection of material to be determined from the photocenter offset, which we interpret as the direction of the velocity vector of the largest satellite at the pericenter. The results of our numerical simulations of the ejection and subsequent motion of dust particles caused by the contact of the satellite with the dust layer of the comet nucleus explain the formation of the structures observed in the comet: the dust jets and their mirror symmetry as well as the extent of the region of material ejection from the surface of the comet nucleus.

中文翻译：

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29P/施瓦斯曼-瓦赫曼1号彗星异常爆发活动的解释：关于大型卫星存在的假说

摘要

我们通过在其轨道近心处接触彗核表面的卫星的存在来解释 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 1 彗星的异常爆发活动。假设卫星在偏心轨道上运行，并且由于与原子核尘埃层的碰撞而喷射出大量尘埃，这些尘埃的光反射导致周期性亮度爆发（BAA 2023）。根据卫星进入尘埃层的深度，会出现不同强度的彗星亮度爆发。通过调用位置观测来改进彗星轨道，允许根据光心偏移确定物质喷射的首选方向，我们将其解释为近心处最大卫星的速度矢量的方向。我们对卫星与彗核尘埃层接触引起的尘埃颗粒的喷射和随后运动的数值模拟结果解释了在彗星中观察到的结构的形成：尘埃射流及其镜像对称性作为彗核表面物质喷射区域的范围。