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词条 Comet Holmes
释义

  1. Discovery

  2. 2007 outburst

  3. References

  4. External links

{{Infobox comet
| name=17P/Holmes
| image=
| caption= {{longitem|Comet 17P/Holmes and its blue ion tail
(taken on November 4, 2007)|style=padding: 6px 0 8px 0;}}
| discovery_date=November 6, 1892
| designations=1892 V1; 1892 III;
1892f; 1899 L1;
1899 II; 1899d;
1906 III; 1906f;
1964 O1; 1964 X;
1964i; 1972 I;
1971b; 1979 IV;
1979f; 1986 V;
1986f; 1993 VII;
1993i
| epoch=October 27, 2007 (JD 2454400.5)
| semimajor=3.618414 AU
| perihelion=2.053218 AU
| aphelion=5.183610 AU
| eccentricity=0.432564
| period=6.882994 a
| inclination=19.1126°
| last_p=March 27, 2014[1][2]
May 4, 2007[1]
| next_p=February 19, 2021[3]
}}Comet Holmes (official designation: 17P/Holmes) is a periodic comet in the Solar System, discovered by the British amateur astronomer Edwin Holmes on November 6, 1892. Although normally a very faint object, Holmes became notable during its October 2007 return when it temporarily brightened by a factor of about half a million, in what was the largest known outburst by a comet, and became visible to the naked eye. It also briefly became the largest object in the Solar System, as its coma (the thin dissipating dust ball around the comet) expanded to a diameter greater than that of the Sun (although its mass remained minuscule).[4]

Discovery

Comet Holmes was discovered by Edwin Holmes on November 6, 1892, while he was conducting regular observations of the Andromeda Galaxy (M31).[5][6]

Its discovery in 1892 was possible because of an increase in its magnitude similar to the 2007 outburst; it brightened to an approximate magnitude of 4 or 5 before fading from visibility over a period of several weeks.[7]

The comet's discovery was confirmed by Edward Walter Maunder (Royal Observatory, Greenwich, England), William Henry Maw (Kensington, London, England),

and B. Kidd (Bramley, Surrey, England).[5][6]

Independent discoveries were made by Thomas David Anderson (Edinburgh, Scotland) on November 8 and by Mike Brown (Wilkes, USA) and by John Ewen Davidson (Mackay, Queensland, Australia) on November 9.[8]

The first calculations of the elliptical orbit of 17P/Holmes were done independently by Heinrich Kreutz and George Mary Searle. Additional orbits eventually established the perihelion date as June 13 and the orbital period as 6.9 years. These calculations proved that the comet was not a return of Biela's Comet.

The 1899 and 1906 appearances were observed, but the comet was lost (see Lost comet) after 1906 until it was recovered on July 16, 1964, by Elizabeth Roemer (US Naval Observatory Flagstaff Station, Arizona, United States). Aided by the computer predictions of Brian G. Marsden, the comet has been observed on every subsequent return.{{clear|left}}

2007 outburst

During its 2007 return, Holmes unexpectedly brightened from a magnitude of about 17 to about 2.8 in a period of only 42 hours, making it visible to the naked eye. This represents a change of brightness by a factor of about half a million and is the largest known outburst by a comet. The outburst took place from October 23 to 24, 2007.[9][10] The first person reportedly to notice a change was J. A. Henríquez Santana on Tenerife in the Canary Islands; minutes later, Ramón Naves in Barcelona noticed the comet at magnitude 7.3.[10] It became easily visible to the naked eye as a bright yellow "star" in Perseus,[11][12] and by October 25 17P/Holmes appeared as the third-brightest "star" in that constellation.[10]

Although large telescopes had already shown fine-scale cometary details, naked-eye observers saw Holmes as merely star-like until October 26.[11] After that date, 17P/Holmes began to appear more comet-like to naked-eye observers.[11] This is because during the comet's outburst, its orbit took it to near opposition with respect to Earth, and because comet tails point away from the Sun, Earth observers were looking nearly straight down along the tail of 17P/Holmes, making the comet appear as a bright sphere.

Based on orbital computations and luminosity before the 2007 outburst, the comet's nucleus was estimated at 3.4 km.[13]

Comet Holmes not only became brighter, but it also swelled in size as its coma expanded. In late October 2007 the coma's apparent diameter increased from 3.3 arcminutes to over 13 arcminutes,[14] about half the diameter of the Moon in the sky. At a distance of around 2 AU, this means that the true diameter of the coma had swelled to over 1 million km,[15] or about 70% of the diameter of the Sun. By comparison, the Moon is 380,000 km from Earth. Therefore, during the 2007 outburst of Comet Holmes the coma was a sphere wider than the diameter of the Moon's orbit around Earth. In November 2007, the coma had dispersed to a volume larger than the Sun, briefly giving it the largest extended atmosphere in the Solar System.[4][16]

The cause of the outburst is not definitely known. The huge cloud of gas and dust may have resulted from a collision with a meteoroid, or, more probably, from a build-up of gas inside the comet's nucleus that eventually broke through the surface.[17] However, researchers at the Max Planck Institute suggest in a paper published in Astronomy and Astrophysics that the brightening can be explained by a thick, air-tight dust cover and the effects of H2O sublimation, with the comet's porous structure providing more surface area for sublimation, up to one order of magnitude greater. Energy from the Sun – insolation – was stored in the dust cover and the nucleus within the months before the outburst.[18]

The comet remained visible in February 2008 though it had become a challenging target at about magnitude +5 in the constellation Perseus. It had expanded to greater than 2 degrees of arc as seen from Earth, and thus had very little surface brightness.

An outburst of 3–4 magnitudes occurred in January 2015, but still required a large telescope to be seen.[19]

References

1. ^{{cite web |date=2009-04-12 |title=17P/Holmes |publisher=Seiichi Yoshida's Comet Catalog |author=Seiichi Yoshida |url=http://www.aerith.net/comet/catalog/0017P/index.html |accessdate=2010-02-24}}
2. ^{{cite web |date=2011-05-19 |title=17P/Holmes (NK 2100) |publisher=OAA Computing and Minor Planet Sections |author=Syuichi Nakano |url=http://www.oaa.gr.jp/~oaacs/nk/nk2100.htm |accessdate=2012-02-18}}
3. ^{{cite web |title=17P/Holmes Orbit |url=http://www.minorplanetcenter.net/db_search/show_object?object_id=17P |publisher=Minor Planet Center |accessdate=2014-06-16}}
4. ^{{cite web |last=Jewitt |first=David |date=2007-11-09 |url=http://www2.ess.ucla.edu/~jewitt/holmes.html |title=Comet Holmes Bigger Than The Sun |publisher=Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii |accessdate=2007-11-17}}
5. ^{{cite journal | last = Holmes | first = Edwin | title = Discovery of a New Comet in Andromeda | journal = The Observatory | volume = 15 | issue = | pages = 441–443 | date = 1892 | bibcode=1892Obs....15..441H | url = http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1892Obs....15..441H | accessdate = 19 May 2015}}
6. ^{{cite journal | last = | first = | title = Meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society, Friday, November 11, 1892 | journal = The Observatory | volume = 15 | issue = | pages = 417–424 | date = 1892 | bibcode = 1892Obs....15..417. | url = http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/1892Obs....15..417./0000420.000.html | accessdate = 19 May 2015}}
7. ^Editors. "Comet Holmes Stays Bright, Enlarges in the Evening Sky", Sky and Telescope, 27 October 2007. Retrieved 29 October 2007.
8. ^Davidson, J. E. "Comet e, 1889," The Observatory, July 1890, Vol. 13, pp. 247. Retrieved 27 October 2007.
9. ^Gunn, Angela. "Flash News Flash! {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070625054541/http://blogs.usatoday.com/techspace/2007/10/flash-news-flas.html |date=2007-06-25 }}," USA Today Tech Space, 24 October 2007. Retrieved 25 October 2007.
10. ^{{cite journal|url=http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/home/10775326.html |accessdate=2007-10-25 |journal=Sky & Telescope |author=Roger W. Sinnott |date=October 24, 2007 |title=Comet Holmes Undergoes Huge Outburst |archiveurl=https://archive.is/20071027023929/http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/home/10775326.html |archivedate=2007-10-27 |deadurl=yes |df= }}
11. ^Fischer, Daniel. "Incredible comet eruption: from under 17th to 3rd magnitude in hours!," The Cosmic Mirror, #306, 24 October 2007. Retrieved 25 October 2007.
12. ^Skymap: late October 2007, Northeast, after sunset, Spaceweather.com. Retrieved 28 October 2007
13. ^Primary measurements, Chris L. Peterson Cloudbait Observatory, Colorado, The coma size values plotted at the bottom of this page are primary measurements. They were obtained using conventional methods: individual short CCDs images were made in order to avoid saturation, and these were then calibrated with bias, flat, and dark frames and summed to increase the image dynamic range. Each stacked image (for the 5 nights of data) was astrometrically calibrated (using Pinpoint) for scale, and the intensity profile of the coma measured with a standard tool (in this case, the line profile tool in MaximDL). The resulting profiles were exported to Excel, normalized to the same gain, and the width measured against the noise floor. The best reference is the plotted data itself.
14. ^Primary measurements, (see luminosity graph; bottom of page) Cloudbait Observatory, Colorado
15. ^2 AU×(~150 Gm/AU)×sin(13 arcmin) ≈ 1.1 million km
16. ^{{cite web |last=Britt |first=Robert |date=2007-11-15 |url=http://www.space.com/spacewatch/071115-comet-holmes-size.html |title= Incredible Comet Bigger than the Sun |publisher=Space.com |accessdate=2008-04-30}}
17. ^"Comet Holmes brightens in retreat", BBC NEWS, 30 October 2007
18. ^{{cite journal |last=Altenhoff |first=W. J. |author2=Kreysa, E. |author3=Menten, K. M. |author4=Sievers, A. |author5=Thum, C. |author6= Weiss, A. |title=Why did Comet 17P/Holmes burst out? Nucleus splitting or delayed sublimation? |journal=Astronomy and Astrophysics |volume=495 |issue=3 |pages=975–978 |year=2009 |doi= 10.1051/0004-6361:200810458|arxiv=0901.2739 |bibcode= 2009A&A...495..975A}}
19. ^[https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/comets-ml/conversations/messages/24428 Comet 17P/Holmes: report on brightest outburst since 2007]
20. ^Nasa 3D simulation of orbit for 17P/Holmes (Java Applet)

External links

{{commons category|17P/Holmes}}
  • 17P at Cometary Science Center
  • 17P at Kronk’s Cometography
  • 17P at Kazuo Kinoshita's Comets
  • 17P at Seiichi Yoshida's Comet Catalog
    • Magnitude graph for 2007-2009
  • Enigmatic Comet Holmes by Jeff Bryant, The Wolfram Demonstrations Project.
  • Evolution of Comet 17P/Holmes
  • Obscure Comet Brightens Suddenly
  • [https://web.archive.org/web/20071110000859/http://starrymirror.com/cometholmesquickfacts.htm Quick Facts About Comet Holmes]
  • Simple Instructions on How to Find Comet Holmes Instructions for the Amateur-based around Toronto or New York.
  • 17P at Las Cumbres Observatory (22 Jan 2010 11:57, 223 seconds)
  • Hubble Zooms In on Heart of Mystery Comet (Hubblesite STScI-2007-40 : November 1, 2007)
  • NASA's Spitzer Gets Sneak Peek Inside Comet Holmes (October 13, 2008)
{{Comets}}{{PeriodicComets Navigator|16P/Brooks|18D/Perrine–Mrkos}}{{DEFAULTSORT:Holmes, 017P}}

4 : Periodic comets|2007 in science|Comets in 2014|Astronomical objects discovered in 1892

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