Modeling of the meteoroid stream of comet C/1975 T2 and λ-Ursae Majorids

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

Received: 5 April 2019
Accepted: 14 May 2019

Abstract

Aims. We study the meteoroid stream of the long-period comet C/1975 T2 (Suzuki-Saigusa-Mori). This comet was suggested as the parent body of the established λ-Ursae Majorid meteor shower, No. 524.

Methods. We modeled 32 parts of a theoretical meteoroid stream of the parent comet considered. Each of our models is characterized with a single value of the evolutionary time and a single value of the strength of Poynting-Robertson effect. The evolutionary time ranges from 10 000 to 80 000 yr. It is the period during which the evolution of the stream part is followed. In each model, the dynamical evolution of 10 000 test particles was then followed, via a numerical integration, from the time of the modeling up to the present. At the end of the integration, we analyzed the mean orbital characteristics of particles in the orbits that approach the Earth’s orbit, which thus enabled us to predict a shower related to the parent comet. The predicted shower was subsequently compared with its observed counterparts. We separated the latter from the databases of real meteors. As well, we attempted to identify the predicted shower to a shower recorded in the International Astronomical Union Meteor Data Center (IAU MDC) list of all showers.

Results. Almost all modeled parts of the stream of comet C/1975 T2 are identified with the corresponding real shower in three video-meteor databases. No real counterpart is found in the IAU MDC photographic or radio-meteor data. In the IAU MDC list of showers and in our current study, this shower is identified with the established λ-Ursae Majorid shower, No. 524. Hence, our modeling confirms the results of previous authors. At the same time we exclude an existence of other meteor shower associated with C/1975 T2.