Orbital Elements of Comet C/1490 Y1 and the Quadrantid shower

TL;DR

This study analyzes historical records and calculates the orbital elements of comet C/1490 Y1, supporting its role as the origin of the Quadrantid meteor shower and suggesting it was a periodic comet.

Contribution

It provides the first orbital element calculations for comet C/1490 Y1 based on historical data, confirming its link to the Quadrantid shower and proposing a connection to asteroid 2003 EH1.

Findings

Comet C/1490 Y1 was a periodic comet.

Its orbit closely matches the Quadrantid stream.

The comet may be linked to asteroid 2003 EH1.

Abstract

The Quadrantid shower, one of the most intense showers, has been observed at the beginning of January each year. However, the origin of the meteors is still unknown. It was Hasegawa (1979) who first suggested comet C/1490 Y1 to be the likely origin of the shower based on the historical records of East Asia. We analyse the records of Jo-Seon-Wang-Jo-Sil-Lok (the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty in ancient Korea) and calculate the preliminary orbital elements of comet C/1490 Y1 using a modified Gauss method. We find that comet C/1490 Y1 was a periodic one and its orbital path was very similar to that of the Quadrantid meteor stream. The determined orbital elements are perifocal passage time Tp=2265652.2983 days (7.8 Jan. 1491 in UT), perifocal distance q=0.769 AU, eccentricity e=0.747, semimajor axis a=3.04 AU, argument of the perifocus omega=164.03 degrees, longitude of ascending node Omega=283.00 degrees, and inclination i=70.22 degrees for the epoch of J2000.0. We, therefore, conclude that our result verifies the suggestion that the comet C/1490 Y1 is the origin of the Quandrantid meteor shower, but was a periodic comet. We dicuss a possible link between this comet and the asteroid 2003 EH1 as well.