The Historical Activity of Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle and Large Leonid Meteoroids

Abstract

AbstractEven though comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle has an orbital period of about 33 years it has only been recovered five times in the past 630 years. The earliest clearly documented return is that of 1366, with the others being in 1699, 1865, 1965 and 1998. The comet may have been briefly sighted in 1035 (indicative of a possible outburst) and in 1234 and it was conspicuous by its non-recovery in 901 (possibly indicating very low surface activity during that return). We review the absolute magnitude data for comet 55P /Tempel-Tuttle and find tentative evidence to suggest it underwent an outburst in 1699. If large meteoroids were ejected from the comet during the 1699 outburst numerical integration studies find that they would have been Earth-orbit crossing in 1832 and 1965 - years in which the Leonid shower was rich in bright fireballs. The Earth will also sample 1699 ejected material in November 2001.