A note on the total mass of comets in the solar system

✍ Scribed by D. A. Mendis; M. L. Marconi

• Publisher: Springer Netherlands
• Year: 1986
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 404 KB
• Volume: 36
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1573-0794
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00057610

✦ Synopsis

The assumption that the very low albedo determined for Halley's comet is typical of all short period comets, taken together with the assumption that the average sizes of long and short period comets are approximately equal, leads to an increase in the total mass of comets in the solar system by almost two orders of magnitude. If gravitational ejection from the Uranus-Neptune zone during the later phases of planet formation is indeed responsible fomr the classical Oort cloud between 104-lo5 AU, then the mass of comets in this transplanetary region during cosmogonic times has to exceed the combined masses of Uranus and Neptune by over an order of magnitude. Furthermore, if the recent arguments for as many as lOI comets in an 'inner' Oort cloud between -40 -104AU are valid, then the total mass of comets in the solar system approaches 2% of a solar mass.