The meteor-shower complex of comet C/1917 F1 (Mellish)

¹ Astronomical Institute, Slovak Academy of Sciences, 05960 Tatranská Lomnica, Slovakia
e-mail: ne@ta3.sk
² Astronomical Institute, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Dúbravská cesta 9, 84504 Bratislava, Slovakia
e-mail: astromia@savba.sk

Received: 8 January 2014
Accepted: 9 April 2014

Abstract

Aims. In our overall work, we attempt to predict some new meteor showers associated with as many as possible known periodic comets and to find the generic relationship of some already known showers with these comets. In this paper, we focus our attention on the meteor-shower complex of the long-period comet C/1917 F1 (Mellish), which is the known parent body of the December Monocerotids. Some other showers have also been suggested to be associated with this comet. We map its whole complex here.

Methods. For five perihelion passages of the parent comet in the past, we model associated theoretical streams, with each consisting of 10 000 test particles and follow their dynamical evolution until the present. Subsequently, we analyze the orbital characteristics of the parts of found streams that approach the Earth’s orbit.

Results. We confirm the generic relationship between the studied parent comet and December Monocerotids. The comet is probably also the parent body of the April ρ-Cygnids. The evolution of meteoroids to the orbits of April ρ-Cygnids is very long at about 20 millennia. If we follow even a longer evolutionary period, which is up to 50 millennia, then two diffuse showers with the radiant situated symmetrically to both the December Monocerotids and April ρ-Cygnids showers with respect to the apex of the Earth’s motion occur. Our simulation does not confirm any relationship between C/1917 F1 and the November Orionids, although this shower was found in all three databases of observed orbits.