Abstract
The Delporte Planet.—A Science Service Bulletin of April 18 describes the views of Drs. F. L. Whipple and L. E. Cunningham on this object. They have obtained a value of the period as approximately 3 years, which does not differ greatly from Dr. Kahrstedt's value of 2¾: years. But they prefer to call it a comet, not a minor planet, on the ground of its rapid decline in brightness, which certainly was much greater than would be expected in a planet. They still suggest that the body is identical with the comet Tuttle-Giacobini, seen in 1858 and 1907. The writer of this note held a similar view when the body was first discovered, but has abandoned it, on the ground that the observations of the comet of 1858 will not admit of a period much less than six years, while the present period is less than three years. Jupiter is the only planet that could produce such a great change of period, but if Jupiter had been the cause of the change, the orbit would still pass close to Jupiter's orbit, which it does not. The least distance between the orbits is about two units.
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Astronomical Topics. Nature 129, 765 (1932). https://doi.org/10.1038/129765a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/129765a0