Comet dust tail model

[Cham]

I'm working on an experiment for some double tails comets. Here's an example, using a "dust" CMOD made with Mathematica, as seen in Celestia :

comet_model.jpg

Here's a comparison with Hale-Bopp :

hale_bopp.jpg

Hale-Bopp-double-cluster.jpg

[Cham]

Other pictures of the Hale-Bopp comet :

halebopp.jpg

hb8_lo.jpg

I07-12-comet.jpg

[Cham]

Here's the same CMOD model, from a distance :

comet_model2.jpg

[chris]

Very nice! Will you share the details of your Mathematica calculations? Are you propagating the trajectories of dust particles affected by solar radiation pressure?

--Chris

[Cham]

Here are some shots of a variation of the first model. Could also be usefull to show a "plume" on Enceladus. If only we had better support for points models in Celestia !

comet3.jpg

comet4.jpg

comet5.jpg

[Cham]

Very nice! Will you share the details of your Mathematica calculations? Are you propagating the trajectories of dust particles affected by solar radiation pressure?

I assumed a simplistic mathematical model : constant pressure exerted on the dust cloud, so the particles feels a constant "gravitationnal" push. So their trajectories are a simple parabola (with random initial conditions). Here's the Mathematica code I'm working on :

Mma_code.jpg

[t00fri]

Chris,

when I submitted my comet tail code to Celestia, you asked me to generalize the tail morphology/direction for the case of multiple star systems, which I actually did.

But I can promise that a reliable generalization of two-tailed comets for multiple star systems will be pretty tough

Are you still hot for that?

Personally, I always found your request "more than academic" ... First of all, we don't have comet data for multiple star systems. Second, I have always considered a solid implementation of the two-tailed structure of ONE-star systems much more important/sensible...

Fridger

[ElChristou]

Looking at the shots above, don't you think the two tails should be inverted? (I mean the actual rendering would become the curved tail and the dust the straight tail...)

[Cham]

Looking at the shots above, don't you think the two tails should be inverted? (I mean the actual rendering would become the curved tail and the dust the straight tail...)

ElChristou,

the blue straight tail rendered in Celestia is the plasma tail. Not dust.

See the description below the first picture, in this PDF document. The bluish tail is the plasma -straight- tail, while the curvy white tail is made of dust, left while the comet is moving, so its curved shape :

http://wsx.lanl.gov/Publications/wurden-comet-ieee.pdf

Also, see this web page :

http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/ ... l&edu=high

Also this place :

http://www.hko.gov.hk/gts/event/event-comet_e.htm

Notice however the error on the picture, compared with the text description below it !

[Cham]

And here again, a lack of points CMOD support is leading to a disaster :

disaster.jpg

The dust tail model is much too visible at this scale. I may change the model's radius, but then it wont scale appropriately with the blue plasma tail.

So this is closing the project

[danielj]

But Io?s volcanoes ARE using point sprites (actually pretty heavy even in my system).Isn?t it the same thing?

[Cham]

As a small by-product of the comet tail model, here's a funny small plume on Enceladus :

plume.jpg

[zhar2]

Can i ask if wanted the commet dist tail be provided to an asteroid body which would work as the comet core?