95% of new comets
have less that 6 returns and the other 5% live indefinitely.
From: Shadeaux@aol.com
Date: Sun, 6 Jul 1997 18:57:29 (EDT)
cc: zca@inel.gov, zuppero@srv.net, pgwhitman@usl.edu, matese@usl.edu,
whitmire@usl.edu
Subject: Reprint
I got a very nice preprint from Tremane via John in which he looks at the
fading law for long period comets. His conclusion is 95% of new comets
have less that 6 returns and the other 5% live indefinitely. His loss of
choice for these comets is fragmentation. Can't say this directly answers
our questions though.
Don't believe the Oort cloud is filled with 20 m
sized objects so dense that one gets flux rates ~ 1 per sec at the earth.
But it is suggesting that fragmentation may be important to comet
lifetimes. Is the physics of Kiper belt comet structure so different so
they would be less prone to fragmentation?
pat