| Title: |
Search for the True Parent Body of the Phoenicid Meteor Shower
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| Authors: |
M. Kovacova, L. Neslusan, D. Tomko
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| Image & caption: |
Please click on image thumbnail to get more info:
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| Image caption::
| Fig. 1: Evolution of the perihelion distance over the last 1000 years for 100 cloned orbits for each of comets 46P/Wirtanen (left), 104P/Kowal 2 (center), 289P/Blanpain (right). The density of the cloned orbits is shown on the color scale. The black curve represents the evolution of the nominal orbit. Notice the different scale on the vertical axes. |
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| Description: |
In 2024, colleagues from the Astronomical Institute, in collaboration with other foreign researchers, found that the Phoenicid meteor shower (PHO) could, based on the similarity of the orbits, originate from three comets: 46P/Wirtanen, 104P/Kowal 2, and 289P/Blanpain. In this study, we modeled and subsequently monitored the meteoroid streams from these comets to determine whether there is only one parent body, or whether this shower could have originated from particles released from multiple comets. This task was difficult due to the unstable dynamical evolution of the studied comets, the released particles, and the fact that the Phoenicids are defined in the IAU Meteor Data Center database by two relatively different solutions (i.e., sets of parameters). Studying the dynamical evolution of the modeled streams from any of the considered comets suggests that although the Phoenicids' solutions are relatively different, they may be parts of the same stream. As for the first solution, from a dynamical point of view, all three comets have practically the same probability of being the parent body of this shower. In the case of the second solution, the meteoroids released from comet 289P have the highest likelihood of such a development. Still, the remaining comets cannot be completely ruled out either. Overall, we can say that the dynamics favor comet 289P as the parent body of the Phoenicids; however, its mass is too small to produce such a stream. The masses of comets 46P and 104P are considerably higher, which makes them more suitable candidates for the parent body. We also cannot exclude the possibility that 289P is the largest known member of the Phoenicid stream, while 46P and/or 104P are the parent bodies. |
| Reference: |
KOVÁČOVÁ, Martina - NESLUŠAN, Luboš - TOMKO, Dušan. Search for the true parent body of the Phoenicid meteor shower. In The Astronomical Journal, 2025, vol. 169, no. 6, article no. 331, p. 1-11. (2024: 5.1 - IF, Q1 - JCR, 2.229 - SJR, Q1 - SJR). ISSN 0004-6256 |
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