Modelling the Ejection of Meteoroids from Comets

Abstract

We have reworked Whipple's (1951) theory of the ejection of meteoroids from comets to include the effects of cooling by the sublimation of the cometary ice and the adiabatic expansion of the escaping gases. We consider only those particles moving significantly slower than the gas speed and find that the inclusion of these effects does not yield results much different from Whipple's theory. We have extended the theory to include the case of an active area in the form of a spherical cap and have shown how the characteristics of the ejection process change when the cap is in the form of a pit or a depression. We present a empirical formulae which should be useful to modellers of meteor stream evolution.