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Science Forum Index » Astro Forum » Paper: Gravitational focusing and shielding of meteoroid str
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| Robert Karl Stonjek |
 Posted: Wed Jan 24, 2007 6:48 pm |
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Gravitational focusing and shielding of meteoroid streams
a.. J. Jones1 and
b.. L. M. G. Poole2
a.. 1Physics and Astronomy Department, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario N6A 3K7, Canada
b.. 2Department of Physics and Electronics, Rhodes University, Grahamstown 6140, South Africa
ABSTRACT
The gravitational attraction of planets can cause significant perturbation of the trajectories of meteoroids. The resulting deflection can result in significant enhancement of the flux of meteoric particles in the neighbourhood of the planet. We give an analytical method for calculating the relative flux of stream meteoroids in the vicinity of a planet. We include the effect of shielding of certain regions that are not accessible to the meteoroids that have impacted the planet. We compare our results with those of Divine et al. and although we confirm the accuracy of their trajectory equations, the fluxes predicted by their calculations are not consistent with integrated fluxes over a planet predicted by the classic work of Öpik. Our method yields predictions for the integrated flux enhancement factor that are identical to Öpik's. We present the results of these calculations and find that in all cases, tail-like regions of enhanced meteoroid flux appear downstream of the planet, with very large enhancements possible in the case of the giant planets for all probable stream velocities.
Source: the Royal Astonomical Society
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2966.2006.11349.x
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Robert Karl Stonjek |
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