C/1937 C1 Whipple
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Comet C/1937 C1 was discovered on 7 February 1937 by Fred Lawrence Whipple (Harvard College Observatory, Massachusetts, USA), that is about 4.5 months before its perihelion passage, and the comet was last seen on 28 October 1937.Soon after, Whipple found a prediscovery image on plates exposed on 4 February. [Kronk, Cometography: Volume 4].
This comet made its closest approach to the Earth on 26 June 1937 (1.269 au), that is 6 days after perihelion passage.
Solutions given here are based on data spanning over 0.729 yr in a range of heliocentric distances from 2.44 au through perihelion (1.73 au) to 2.40 au.
Pure gravitational orbit determined from all available positional measurements (417 observations) give 1b-class orbit similarly as in Minor Planet Center (136 obs. used, the same arc of data; 1B-class, see MPC).
It was possible to determine the non-gravitational orbit for C/1937 C1 (preferred orbit); the derived NG solution give very similar original and future 1/a as in the case of pure gravitational model of motion.
This Oort spike comet suffers large planetary perturbations during its passage through the planetary system, and it left the planetary zone on a significantly more tight orbit with the future semimajor axis of about 720 au (see future barycentric orbits in both solutions: pure gravitational and non-gravitational).
More details in Królikowska et al. 2014.
This comet made its closest approach to the Earth on 26 June 1937 (1.269 au), that is 6 days after perihelion passage.
Solutions given here are based on data spanning over 0.729 yr in a range of heliocentric distances from 2.44 au through perihelion (1.73 au) to 2.40 au.
Pure gravitational orbit determined from all available positional measurements (417 observations) give 1b-class orbit similarly as in Minor Planet Center (136 obs. used, the same arc of data; 1B-class, see MPC).
It was possible to determine the non-gravitational orbit for C/1937 C1 (preferred orbit); the derived NG solution give very similar original and future 1/a as in the case of pure gravitational model of motion.
This Oort spike comet suffers large planetary perturbations during its passage through the planetary system, and it left the planetary zone on a significantly more tight orbit with the future semimajor axis of about 720 au (see future barycentric orbits in both solutions: pure gravitational and non-gravitational).
More details in Królikowska et al. 2014.
| solution description | ||
|---|---|---|
| number of observations | 417 | |
| data interval | 1937 02 04 – 1937 10 28 | |
| data type | perihelion within the observation arc (FULL) | |
| data arc selection | entire data set (STD) | |
| range of heliocentric distances | 2.44 au – 1.73 au (perihelion) – 2.4 au | |
| detectability of NG effects in the comet's motion | comet with determinable NG~orbit | |
| type of model of motion | GR - gravitational orbit | |
| data weighting | YES | |
| number of residuals | 767 | |
| RMS [arcseconds] | 2.53 | |
| orbit quality class | 1b | |
| orbital elements (barycentric ecliptic J2000) | ||
|---|---|---|
| Epoch | 1637 04 29 | |
| perihelion date | 1937 06 20.22104856 | ± 0.00050595 |
| perihelion distance [au] | 1.73545046 | ± 0.00000397 |
| eccentricity | 0.99989864 | ± 0.00001243 |
| argument of perihelion [°] | 107.714649 | ± 0.000300 |
| ascending node [°] | 128.591694 | ± 0.000109 |
| inclination [°] | 41.523168 | ± 0.000084 |
| reciprocal semi-major axis [10-6 au-1] | 58.40 | ± 7.16 |
| file containing 5001 VCs swarm |
|---|
| 1937c1a5.bmi |
Time distribution of positional observations with corresponding heliocentric (red curve) and geocentric (green curve) distance at which they were taken. The horizontal dotted line shows the perihelion distance for a given comet whereas vertical dotted line — the moment of perihelion passage.
Six 2D-projections of the 6D space of original swarm including 5001 VCs. Each density map is given in logarithmic scale presented on the right in the individual panel.