re comet in temporary orbit around jupiter shag aero org rob unverzagt writes in article apr kelvin jpl nasa gov baalke kelvin jpl nasa gov ron baalke writes according the iau circular comet shoemaker levy e may be temporarily in orbit around jupiter the comet had apparently made a close flyby of jupiter sometime in resulting in the breakup of the comet attempts to determine the comet s orbit has been complicated by the near impossibility of measuring the comet s center of mass am i missing something what does knowing the comet s center of mass do for you in orbit determination shag i m not sure but it almost sounds like they can t figure out where the nucleus is within the coma if they re off by a couple hundred miles well you can imagine the rest phil fraering seems like every day we find out all sorts of stuff pgf srl cacs usl edu like how the ancient mayans had televison repo man
