Three-Dimensional Distributions of Minor Planets and Comets

Abstract

The attitude toward the systems of interplanetary objects is largely different from that accustomed in stellar astronomy. The stellar systems are viewed from the outside, with their shape, population, and internal structure apparent at first glance. The motions are difficult to recognize, if ever, and so the individual orbits are degraded to a background mechanism maintaining the observed organization and rotation of the system. In contrast to this, we dispose of copious information on the dynamics of individual interplanetary objects, but the bodies to which the orbital data refer are sampled under the influence of strong selection effects. Lacking a consistent survey of their systems, we tend to think of them in terms of the biased statistics in the phase-space of orbital elements, rather than in terms of the real three-dimensional distributions. No wonder that we often come across serious misrepresentations: the asteroid belt depicted as a plane ring divided by the Kirkwood gaps like the ring of Saturn; the Trojan clouds as small spherical systems resembling globular star clusters; or the meteor streams as elongated rings of uniform width and population all around. And we seem to receive these gross misrepresentations with surprisingly little annoyance.