Comets
Comets
Belinda Scott
Introduction to Physical Science – SCI 110
Dr. Paul A. Belony, Jr.
| | A comet is a small body, roughly the size of a small town, in the Solar System. It is made up of ice, rock, dust, carbon dioxide, ammonia, methane and more. Some researchers think comets might have originally brought some of the water and organic molecules to Earth that now make up life here. Comets become visible as they near the Sun. The tail of a comet is its most characteristic feature. Round and round a comet goes in its orbit and when it comes into the inner solar system. Each time a comet gets closer to the Sun, the ice on the surface of the nucleus, measuring ten miles or less, begins turning into gas, forming a cloud known as the coma. Radiation from the sun pushes dust particles away from the coma, which can reach 1 million miles wide, forming a dust tail, while charged particles from the sun convert some of the comet's gases into ions, forming a stream of volatile materials known as an ion tail. Some tails can reach 100 million miles long. The tail of the comet always points away from the Sun, since they are shaped by sunlight and the solar wind, so that when the comet is receding from the Sun, its tail actually runs before it. Typical comet loses about one tenth of a percent of its mass every time it passes near the Sun. After one thousand passages or so, Comets lose all their ices, leaving behind only an orbiting stream of fragile, inactive objects, meteoric dust, ice, and pebbles, similar to an asteroids. When Earth, in its annual journey around the Sun, passes through one of these dusty tracks, we are treated to a meteor shower. For centuries, scientists thought comets traveled in the Earth's atmosphere, but in 1577, observations made by Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe revealed they actually traveled far beyond the moon. Isaac Newton later discovered that comets move in elliptical, oval-shaped orbits around
Belinda Scott
Introduction to Physical Science – SCI 110
Dr. Paul A. Belony, Jr.
| | A comet is a small body, roughly the size of a small town, in the Solar System. It is made up of ice, rock, dust, carbon dioxide, ammonia, methane and more. Some researchers think comets might have originally brought some of the water and organic molecules to Earth that now make up life here. Comets become visible as they near the Sun. The tail of a comet is its most characteristic feature. Round and round a comet goes in its orbit and when it comes into the inner solar system. Each time a comet gets closer to the Sun, the ice on the surface of the nucleus, measuring ten miles or less, begins turning into gas, forming a cloud known as the coma. Radiation from the sun pushes dust particles away from the coma, which can reach 1 million miles wide, forming a dust tail, while charged particles from the sun convert some of the comet's gases into ions, forming a stream of volatile materials known as an ion tail. Some tails can reach 100 million miles long. The tail of the comet always points away from the Sun, since they are shaped by sunlight and the solar wind, so that when the comet is receding from the Sun, its tail actually runs before it. Typical comet loses about one tenth of a percent of its mass every time it passes near the Sun. After one thousand passages or so, Comets lose all their ices, leaving behind only an orbiting stream of fragile, inactive objects, meteoric dust, ice, and pebbles, similar to an asteroids. When Earth, in its annual journey around the Sun, passes through one of these dusty tracks, we are treated to a meteor shower. For centuries, scientists thought comets traveled in the Earth's atmosphere, but in 1577, observations made by Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe revealed they actually traveled far beyond the moon. Isaac Newton later discovered that comets move in elliptical, oval-shaped orbits around