The structure and evolution of the Taurid Complex

Abstract

The structure of the Taurid meteoroid complex is investigated using orbital element measurements from the IAU Meteor Data Center. The complex is found to have been formed during the last ~ 10 kyr, this time-scale corresponding to a probable late stage in the evolution of the parent object, a giant comet which was apparently captured into a small-perihelion, short-period orbit ~ 20 kyr ago and which, in an initial highly active phase, gave rise to the material that now broadly constitutes the zodiacal cloud. Models of the evolution of the complex under gravitational perturbations suggest that meteoroids must have originally left the parent object near perihelion, but also allow the possibility that fragmentations have occurred when large disintegration products collided with objects in the asteroid belt, more or less as described by Whipple & Hamid 1952. Such a model may be entertained, for example, if the core of the evolved giant comet has previously undergone devolatilization, producing a high degree of fragility in the constituent debris.