Great Comet of 1882 - Orbital Studies

Orbital Studies

Studies of the orbit of the comet showed that the Great Comet of 1882 was moving on an almost identical path to previous great comets seen in C/1843 D1 and C/1880 C1. These comets had also suddenly appeared in the morning sky and had passed extremely close to the Sun at perihelion. One suggestion was that all three were in fact the same comet, with an orbital period that was being drastically shortened at each perihelion passage. However, studies showed this to be untenable, as the orbital period of this comet is 772 ± 3 years and the others are 600–800 years.

Heinrich Kreutz studied the orbits of the three great comets, and developed the idea that the three comets were fragments of a much larger progenitor comet which had broken up at an earlier perihelion passage. The fragmentation of the Great Comet of 1882 itself demonstrated that this was plausible. It is now thought that the Great Comet of 1882 is a fragment of X/1106 C1, and that Comet du Toit (C/1945 X1) and Comet Ikeya–Seki (C/1965 S1) are two of its sister fragments.

It is now well established that the comets C/1843 D1, C/1880 C1, C/1882 R1, C/1887 B1, C/1963 R1, C/1965 S1, and C/1970 K1 are all members of a family known as the Kreutz Sungrazers, which are all descended from one comet. Current models do not support the frequent supposition in the prior literature that the famous comet of 372 BC is in fact the ultimate parent of the Sungrazers. The comet of 372 BC is often associated with Aristotle who, along with others from his time, described that comet in his writings. However, Aristotle was only twelve at the time of the comet's appearance and the historian, Callisthenes of Olynthus, who also wrote about it was born ten years after its appearance. Consequently, their reports should not be taken as eye-witness accounts. Further, there is no mention of the comet in Chinese literature of the time. Instead either the comet of February 423 or of February 467 with orbital periods of around 700 years is now considered the likely progenitor of the Sungrazers. The fragments of the Great Comet of 1882 will return in several hundred years time, spread out over perhaps two or three centuries.