Comet Encke

The comet Encke ( official designation 2P/Encke ) is a named after Johann Franz Encke periodic comet. He has one of the shortest orbital periods of all known comets.

Encke had managed through extensive studies and train calculations for bringing different sightings in the years 1786, 1795, 1805 and 1818 with each other. He published his results in 1819 in the journal Correspondance Astronomique and said the return for the year 1822 correctly predicted.

History

Its official name stating that he is after Halley 's Comet ( 1P/Halley ) of the second comet, which was recognized as a recurring basis. The comet was first detected on 17 January 1786 by Pierre Méchain. On his return in 1795 he was discovered by Caroline Herschel in 1805 by Jean -Louis Pons and again in 1818 by Pons before Encke comet could not assign the four phenomena a single object. While comets are usually named after their discoverer, the comet was named in this case, the person who calculated its orbit, so that the comet is named 2P/Encke today. The Encke 's Comet was one of the planned mission objectives of failed CONTOUR comet.

Orbit

The Encke comet moves in an elongated elliptical orbit around the Sun, the point nearest the Sun ( perihelion ) is with 0.339 AE in the orbit of the planet Mercury, during the sonnenfernste point ( aphelion ) extends with 4,097 AE to the vicinity of Jupiter's orbit. The orbital inclination of its orbit to the ecliptic is 11.8 °. With an orbital period of only 3.3 years of Encke 's Comet has the shortest orbital period of all known periodic comets.

In the 19th century it was found that the orbital period of Encke 's comet constantly slightly shortened, which was taken as evidence for the existence of the ether, the frictional resistance was blamed for braking. Today we know that the braking it goes back that is ejected matter near the Sun from the comet nucleus in the form of jets, and these act as braking rockets. The continuing loss of matter also leads to a decrease in the brightness of the comet: the absolute brightness of the comet Encke is average in 50 years by about 0.5 may return. Its diameter is therefore estimated to be only about 4.8 km.

Meteors

On the Encke 's comet meteor stream of Taurid goes back. Some scientists blame a fragment of the earlier larger comet for destruction during the Bronze Age in the Fertile Crescent. A large impact crater in Iraq is considered a possible proof, a detailed geological survey of the structure is still out.

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