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| | [116.02] Where Are the Asteroids From the Kirkwood Gaps? (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-02) |
 | | Daniel Kirkwood (1888, The Asteroids, Lippincott) proposed that minor planets whose sidereal periods were commensurate with Jupiter's period with ratios 1/2, 1/3, etc., had increasing eccentricity; and at perihelion, collided with the sun in the early history of the solar system. |
 | | Jack Wisdom (1985, Icarus 63, 262) studied the motion of hypothetical planar asteroids near the 1/3 commensurability, and concluded that chaotic increases in the eccentricity would make these asteroids approach Mars and collide or be strongly deflected from their original orbits. |
 | | MP5370 will pass through the Kirkwood gap in about 5 ± 0.5 Jyrs, or 59 ± 6 years, from the Dec 18, 1997 epoch used in our calculations. |
| www.aas.org /publications/baas/v30n4/aas193/280.htm (308 words) |
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