Orbit
A number of orbital calculations were made, some indicating a perihelion date (the date of the closest approach to the Sun) of August 9–10, and some a date of 13–14, depending on whether the orbital solutions were parabolic or elliptical. Anders Johan Lexell made four separate sets of calculations over a period of several years and deduced an orbital period of 5.58 years. Lexell also noted that, despite this short-period orbit, by far the shortest known at the time, the comet was unlikely to have been seen previously because its orbit had been radically altered on a previous occasion by the gravitational forces of Jupiter. It is, therefore, the earliest identified Jupiter family comet (as well as the first known Near-Earth Object).
The comet was never seen again. Lexell, after conducting further work in cooperation with Pierre-Simon Laplace, argued that a subsequent interaction with Jupiter in 1779 had further perturbed its orbit, either placing it too far from Earth to be seen or perhaps ejecting it from the Solar System altogether. The comet is now considered lost.
Lexell's work on the orbit of the comet is considered to be the beginning of modern understanding of orbit determination. In the 1840s Urbain Le Verrier carried out further work on the comet's orbit and demonstrated that despite potentially approaching Jupiter as close as three and a half radii from the planet's centre the comet could never have become a satellite of Jupiter.
Read more about this topic: Lexell's Comet
Famous quotes containing the word orbit:
““To my thinking” boomed the Professor, begging the question as usual, “the greatest triumph of the human mind was the calculation of Neptune from the observed vagaries of the orbit of Uranus.”
“And yours,” said the P.B.”
—Samuel Beckett (1906–1989)
“The Fitchburg Railroad touches the pond about a hundred rods south of where I dwell. I usually go to the village along its causeway, and am, as it were, related to society by this link. The men on the freight trains, who go over the whole length of the road, bow to me as to an old acquaintance, they pass me so often, and apparently they take me for an employee; and so I am. I too would fain be a track-repairer somewhere in the orbit of the earth.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The human spirit is itself the most wonderful fairy tale that can possibly be. What a magnificent world lies enclosed within our bosoms! No solar orbit hems it in, the inexhaustible wealth of the total visible creation is outweighed by its riches!”
—E.T.A.W. (Ernst Theodor Amadeus Wilhelm)