Non-gravitational motion of the Jupiter-family comet 81P/Wild 2

• Published in: Astronomy and astrophysics (Berlin) 2006-03, Vol.448 (1), p.401-409
• Main Authors: Królikowska, M., Szutowicz, S.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: comets: general; comets: individual: comet 81P/Wild 2
• ISSN: 0004-6361; 1432-0746
• DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20053756

We investigated the influence of the non-gravitational effects on the orbital motion of 81P/Wild 2. First, the non-gravitational accelerations on cometary nucleus throughout all five revolutions around the sun were analysed using both the symmetrical and the asymmetrical $g(r)$-function. Next, the symmetric model was used to examine the past and future dynamical evolution of Wild 2 within the time interval of ±8 thousand years. We then introduced a statistical approach. In the most probable scenario for Wild 2 history, a few thousand years ago, this comet was an object with its perihelion close to the Jupiter orbit with an aphelion distance greater than the Neptune orbit: JN class, JE class, JT class, or even larger. Due to the extremely close approach to Jupiter in 1974, its future evolution differs substantially from earlier, so most probably, comet Wild 2 will survive as a typical Jupiter-family comet during the few thousand years that follow. After 8000 yr, however, the chance that the comet Wild 2 will still be a typical JF comet (with $q