Boulder complex model

✍ Scribed by B. S. Sandhu

• Publisher: Springer Netherlands
• Year: 1992
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 527 KB
• Volume: 56
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1573-0794
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00056355

✦ Synopsis

Whipple's icy conglomerate model of cometary nucleus enjoyed wide acceptance and a, long successful life. Considerable changes were brought to it based on the guidance of observational evidences and theoretical considerations. After the fractal model and the rubble pile model, icy glue model brought major alterations. But the concept of porous refractory boulders of the icy glue model seems to be quite unrealistic and unexplicable. Viewing minutely the process of the formation of comets a new model is proposed in which in the outskirts of the solar accretion disc ice and dust mixture formed small particles, which agglomerated to give large particles. These large particles further agglomerated to form tens of meters sized boulders. In this model it is assumed that up to the formation of boulders, ice and dust mix glue was consumed almost completely. The boulders collide with one another and get glued with the help of the glue formed due to the breakage of small particles at the interface, and form a boulder complex of the size of hundreds of meters. These complexes of boulders along with small boulders come together to form the cometary nucleus.