Planetary ejection of a comet

ID: planetary-ejection-of-a-comet

A gravitational assist ejects a weakly bound comet when the increase in its specific orbital energy exceeds its binding energy. For near-parabolic coplanar encounters, the weak-deflection ejection impact parameter scales as . Combining this with the phase-mixed comet surface density gives a one-encounter ejection time proportional to , within the local two-body encounter approximation.

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