2009 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

Research on activity histories of parent comets and asteroids of meteor showers with Dust Trail theory

Research Project

Project/Area Number	19540449
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Section	一般
Research Field	Solid earth and planetary physics
Research Institution	National Astronomical Observatory of Japan
Principal Investigator	WATANABE Junichi National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, 天文情報センター, 准教授 (50201190)
Project Period (FY)	2007 – 2009
Keywords	流星 / 流星群 / 彗星 / 小惑星 / 光赤外線天文学
Research Abstract	A new method to investigate the history of activities of parent comets or asteroids by using related meteor shower activities was developed, and applied to actual examples(Orionid meteor shower and Comet Halley, June Bootids meteor shower and and Comet Pons-Winnecke, October Draconids and comet Giacobini-Zinner). Several candidates of the dead-comets, which may have related meteor showers, have been picked up among the Near-Earth asteroids, and investigated. As a result, asteroid 2003WY25 has been identified as the parent object of Phoenicid meteor shower, and thought to be a dead comet. It is thought to have a cometary activity in 18^<th> century, but、but its activity should have been decreased in the 19^<th> century by our study. The future activities of the Phoenicids was also calculated, and actually observed by high-sensitivity video camera developed in this research.