Biela's Comet

3D/Biela

Biela's Comet in February 1846, soon after it split into two pieces
Discovery
Discovered by	Wilhelm von Biela
Discovery date	February 27, 1826
Designations
Alternative designations	1772; 1806 I; 1832 III; 1846 II; 1852 III; 1772 E1; 1826 D1; 1832 S1
Orbital characteristics
Epoch	September 29, 1852
Aphelion	6.190 AU
Perihelion	0.8606 AU
Semi-major axis	3.5253AU
Eccentricity	0.7559
Orbital period	6.619yr
Inclination	12.550°
Last perihelion	September 23, 1852 (fragment A) September 24, 1852 (fragment B)
Next perihelion	Last seen September 1852
TJupiter	2.531
EarthMOID	0.0005 AU (75 thousand km) (epoch 1832)
Physical characteristics
Dimensions	≈0.5 km (pre-breakup)

Perihelion distance at different epochs
Epoch	Perihelion (AU)	Period (years)
1772	0.99	6.87
1805	0.91	6.74
1826	0.90	6.72
1832	0.88	6.65
1846	0.86	6.60
1852	0.86	6.62

Biela's CometorComet Biela(official designation:3D/Biela) was aperiodicJupiter-family cometfirst recorded in 1772 by Montaigne andMessierand finally identified as periodic in 1826 byWilhelm von Biela.It was subsequently observed to split in two and has not been seen since 1852. As a result, it is currently considered to have been destroyed, although remnants have survived for some time as ameteor shower,theAndromedidswhich may show increased activity in 2023.

Discovery

The comet was first recorded on 8 March 1772 by Jacques Leibax Montaigne;during the same apparition it was independently discovered byCharles Messier.It was also recorded in 1805 byJean-Louis Pons,but was not recognized as the same object. Around 9 December 1805 comet Biela passed about 0.0366AU(5.48 millionkm) from Earth.After the 1805 apparition a number of attempts were made byGauss(1806) andBessel(1806) to calculate a definitive orbit. Gauss andOlbersboth noted a similarity between the 1805 and 1772 comets but they were not able to prove a link.

3D/Biela closest Earth approach on 9 December 1805

Date and time of closest approach	Earth distance (AU)	Sun distance (AU)	Velocity relative to Earth (km/s)	Velocity relative to Sun (km/s)	Solar elongation
9 December 1805 ≈21:48	0.0366AU(5.48 millionkm;3.40 millionmi;14.2LD)	0.977 AU (146.2 million km; 90.8 million mi; 380 LD)	14.3	39.6	77.7°

Confirmation as periodic

It wasWilhelm von Biela,an army officer serving at the fortress town ofJosefstadt,who observed the comet during its 1826perihelionapproach (on February 27) andcalculateditsorbit,discovering it to be periodic with a period of 6.6 years. At the time it was only the third comet known to be periodic, after cometsHalleyandEncke.The comet was named after Biela, although there was initially some controversy due to a later but independent discovery byJean-Félix Adolphe Gambart,who also provided the first mathematical proof linking the 1826 and 1805 comets (letters from Biela and Gambart were published in the same issue of theAstronomische Nachrichten). A third claim was made byThomas Clausen,who had independently linked the comets.

The comet appeared as predicted during its 1832 apparition, when it was first recovered byJohn Herschelon 24 September.The orbital elements and ephemeris calculated by Olbers for this return created something of a popular sensation, as they showed that the comet's coma would likely pass through the Earth's orbit around October 29, but at an Earth distance of about 0.55AU(82 millionkm). Subsequent predictions, in the media of the time, of the Earth's likely destruction overlooked the fact that the Earth itself would not reach this point until November 30, a month later, as pointed out byFrançois Aragoin an article designed to allay public fears.Despite this, the fact that Biela's Comet was the only comet known to intersect the Earth's orbit was to make it of particular interest, both to astronomers and the public, during the 19th century.

In 1832, Greek-Austrian astronomerGeorgios Konstantinos Vourispublished his own calculations of the elliptical orbit of the comet entitled:Elliptical orbit calculation of Biela's Comet from 96 observations of the year 1832 (Elliptische bahnbere chung des Biela'schen cometen aus 96 beobachtungen des Jahres 1832).His article was a comprehensive overview of the elliptical orbital of Biela's Comet.

The 1839 apparition was extremely unfavourable and no observations were made as the comet never came closer than 1.8AUfrom Earth since the comet was on the other side of the Sun. During 1839 the comet never had asolar elongationgreater than 50 degrees.

Disintegration

As of 1832, comet Biela had an Earth-MOID (Minimum orbit intersection distance) of only 0.0005 AU (75 thousand km).The comet was rediscovered on November 26, 1845, byFrancesco de Vico.Initially sporting small, faint nebulosities, subsequent observations showed that something remarkable had happened to it.Matthew Fontaine Maury,observing on 14 January 1846, noted that an apparent companion was located 1arc minutenorth of the comet.After this announcement many astronomers began observing the comet, and noted that the two elements (usually referred to as "Comet A" and "Comet B" in modern nomenclature) alternated in brightness, developing parallel tails as they approached perihelion. Some observations indicated an "archway of cometary matter" extending between the two nuclei,which might suggest that the comet had split into many more pieces than two, but were simply too faint to be observed individually.

The two components of Biela in 1852, as drawn bySecchi.

In 1852, the comet was again rediscovered more or less as predicted, with "Comet A" being rediscovered first, byAngelo Secchion August 26."Comet B" was finally relocated on September 16, and once again both nuclei alternated in brightness during the period of observation. "A" was last detected on this apparition on September 26 and "B" on September 29, in both cases byOtto Wilhelm Struve.Subsequent orbital calculations indicated that the nuclei had probably split around 500 days before the 1845 apparition,though more recent work has determined that it may have occurred nearaphelionin late 1842.

The Andromedid or Bielid meteors as seen on the night of November 27, 1872.

Neither part could be found on their predicted periodic returns in 1859 (in any case an unfavorable return for viewing), 1865, or 1872. However, on November 27, 1872, a brilliantmeteor shower(3,000per hour) was observed radiating from the part of the sky where the comet had been predicted to cross in September 1872. This was the date when Earth intersected the 1839 and 1846meteoroid streams.These meteors became known as theAndromedidsor "Bielids" and it seems apparent that they were produced by the breakup of the comet. The meteors were seen again on subsequent occasions for the rest of the 19th century, but have now faded away, due togravitational perturbations moving the node outside of Earth's orbit.

Possible observations and searches

There were, however, inconclusive observations during the 1865 and 1872 returns. Charles Talmage, using ephemerides provided byJohn Russell Hind,claimed to have briefly observed a nebulous object in approximately the right position in November 1865. James Buckingham also observed two nebulosities in 1865 after studying Hind's predictions, but Hind subsequently stated that they were unlikely to be Biela's Comet, as they were much closer together than the two components of the comet should have been. A puzzling observation recorded asX/1872 X1,seen byN. R. Pogsonin late 1872 from theMadras Observatory,was also speculated to be a recovery of Biela's Comet, though once again this was later shown to have been unlikely.

Despite the apparent destruction of the comet, there were a number of searches for it during the later 20th century.Brian G. MarsdenandZdeněk Sekaninaattempted to calculate a likely orbit for any remaining parts of the comet; it was during a search using Marsden's calculations thatLuboš KohoutekdiscoveredComet Kohoutek.It has been calculated that the mass of the debris left in the Andromedid meteor stream is still much less than the total mass of the comet. Given that it is more likely that the main mass loss occurred near aphelionbeforethe 1845 apparition, it seems possible that fragment A at least may still exist as a 'dormant' comet.

There have been several attempts to identify objects discovered subsequently either as Biela's Comet or as a remnant of it. The German astronomer Karl Ristenpart attempted several times to prove a link with the comet now known as18D/Perrine-Mrkos,which had a very similar orbit to Biela apart from a differingArgument of Perihelion.Despite this, it was not possible to prove any relationship and Perrine-Mrkos, an intrinsically faint object, has itself since been lost. Comet207P/NEAT(P/2001 J1), discovered in 2001 by the NEAT asteroid survey, was also found to have a similar orbit to Biela's Comet, and it was initially thought possible that it was in some way related to it.

2023

Propagating the very dated orbit from the 1800s, there is speculation that Biela could pass around 0.2AU(30 millionkm) from Earth in late October 2023and come to perihelion in December 2023,but Biela could just as easily be out by the orbit ofJupiter.The 1649 meteoroid stream is expected to generate a modest increase in the December 2023 activity of theAndromedids.

Meteoric impacts

Biela's Comet was the subject of several panics over close approaches to Earth. An 1877 newspaper illustration fromChile,captioned "inevitable impact of the Earth with Comet Biela"

Biela has sometimes been proposed as the source of meteoric impacts on Earth.

A fringe theory links together several major fires that occurred simultaneously in America, including theGreat Chicago Fire,theGreat Michigan Fire,and thePeshtigo Fire,claiming that they were caused by fragments of Biela's Comet striking the Earth, in October 1871.The theory was first proposed byIgnatius L. Donnellyin 1883, and was revived in a 1985 bookand further explored in an unpublished 2004 scientific paper.However, experts dispute such a scenario - meteorites in fact are cold to the touch when they reach the Earth's surface, and there are no credible reports of any fire anywhere having been started by a meteorite.Given the lowtensile strengthof such bodies, if a fragment of an icy comet were to strike the Earth, the most likely outcome would be for it to disintegrate in the upper atmosphere, leading to ameteor air burst.

On November 27, 1885, an iron meteorite fell in northern Mexico, at the same time as a 15,000 per hour outburst of the Andromedid meteor shower. TheMazapilmeteorite has sometimes been attributed to the comet, but this idea has been out of favor since the 1950s as the processes of differentiation required to produce an iron body are not believed to occur in comets.

Importance in the history of the concept of luminiferous ether

Biela's Comet (andComet Encke) had a role in the now-discredited concept ofluminiferous aether:its orbit was found to be shrinking in size, which was ascribed to thedragof an ether through which it orbited.