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Article: New orbital model details comet gas effects. (nongravitational forces affecting comets' orbits)
- Article from:
- Science News
- Article date:
- February 20, 1993
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1993 Science Service, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Each time a periodic comet revisits the inner solar system, it can experience the gentle effects of dust-bearing gas jets erupting on its sun-warmed surface. These so-called nongravitational forces can advance or retard a comet's date of return by hours or years. For example, Comet Swift-Tuttle confounded most predictions when it returned last year, indicating a shift of as much as 11 years from the orbit it would have followed if guided solely by the gravitational pull of the sun and planets (SN: 10/10/92, p.230).
In most cases, astronomers can estimate these nongravitational orbital shifts with fair accuracy, although the detailed physical explanation ...