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Asteroids Comets Meteor Showers
Asteroids Comets Meteor Showers

... followed by others. Referred to as planets, until realized that there was a large number of these. First thought to be debris from a destroyed planet. Eventually realized mass in Asteroid Belt too small for this. ...
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... Some worry that a celestial intruder such as this may one day collide with Earth, causing a massive geological and biological upheaval. Indeed, scientists believe that an asteroid or series of meteor impacts some 65 million years ago resulted in major climate changes and the extinction of the dinosa ...
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Kohoutek Is Coming - Institute of Current World Affairs

... larly visible to the naked eye for about six weeks before and after that ...
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... pass by the Sun only once or that repeatedly bring them through the solar system (as in the 76-year orbit of Halley’s Comet). A comet’s “signature” long, glowing tail Continued … ...
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... Rosetta (2004) -- will land a probe on the nucleus of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (2014) ...
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... mostly of ice and dust coated with dark organic material, with the ice composed mainly of frozen water but perhaps other frozen substances as well, such as ammonia, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and methane. The nucleus might have a small rocky core. ...
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what is a comet? - Fireballs in the sky

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The Solar System (Planetary Debris) - NATSCI-A7

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... • A) Comet orbits are mostly circular and in the ecliptic plane, whereas asteroids have elliptical orbits inclined at random to the ecliptic plane • B) Comets never approach closer to the Sun than approximately Jupiter’s orbit, whereas some asteroids approach very close to the Sun • C) Asteroids orb ...
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... The outer edge of our Solar System is not empty. There are many, many huge spheres of ice and rock out near Pluto's orbit. Astronomers call this huge group of planetoids "Kuiper Belt Objects", or "KBOs" for short. The Kuiper Belt is a bit like the asteroid belt, but much farther from the Sun. See ho ...
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... gas from the ices and dust that is mixed in with the ice. They escape as the comet melts. The tail always points away from the sun due to the solar winds (movement of heat away from sun) ...
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... Some comets make many revolutions around the sun. The most famous returning comet is Halley's Comet. It revolves around the sun once every 76 years. It was named for Edmund Halley who discovered it in 1682. Its orbit of about 11 billion kilometers takes it just past Neptune. The tail of Halley's Com ...
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... Comets – they do NOT flash across the sky! Asteroids: small objects in orbit around the sun between Mars and Jupiter , seen only with telescopes Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs): small objects orbiting on the outer fringe of ...
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DEEP IMPACT and ROSETTA

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... at the end of the Big Dipper's handle • January 16 — Passes 2° southwest of the 8thmagnitude galaxy, M101 • January 17 — Passes 3.4° northeast of the double star Mizar in the bend of the Big Dipper's handle ...
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Comet



A comet is an icy small Solar System body that, when passing close to the Sun, heats up and begins to outgas, displaying a visible atmosphere or coma, and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena are due to the effects of solar radiation and the solar wind upon the nucleus of the comet. Comet nuclei range from a few hundred metres to tens of kilometres across and are composed of loose collections of ice, dust, and small rocky particles. The coma and tail are much larger and, if sufficiently bright, may be seen from the Earth without the aid of a telescope. Comets have been observed and recorded since ancient times by many cultures.Comets have a wide range of orbital periods, ranging from several years to potentially several millions of years. Short-period comets originate in the Kuiper belt or its associated scattered disc, which lie beyond the orbit of Neptune. Long-period comets are thought to originate in the Oort cloud, a spherical cloud of icy bodies extending from outside the Kuiper belt to halfway to the next nearest star. Long-period comets are directed towards the Sun from the Oort cloud by gravitational perturbations caused by passing stars and the galactic tide. Hyperbolic comets may pass once through the inner Solar System before being flung out to interstellar space.Comets are distinguished from asteroids by the presence of an extended, gravitationally unbound atmosphere surrounding their central nucleus. This atmosphere has parts termed the coma (the central part immediately surrounding the nucleus) and the tail (a typically linear section consisting of dust or gas blown out from the coma by the Sun's light pressure or outstreaming solar wind plasma). However, extinct comets that have passed close to the Sun many times have lost nearly all of their volatile ices and dust and may come to resemble small asteroids. Asteroids are thought to have a different origin from comets, having formed inside the orbit of Jupiter rather than in the outer Solar System. The discovery of main-belt comets and active centaurs has blurred the distinction between asteroids and comets.As of November 2014 there are 5,253 known comets, a number that is steadily increasing. However, this represents only a tiny fraction of the total potential comet population, as the reservoir of comet-like bodies in the outer Solar System (in the Oort cloud) is estimated to be one trillion. Roughly one comet per year is visible to the naked eye, though many of these are faint and unspectacular. Particularly bright examples are called ""Great Comets"". Comets have been visited by unmanned probes such as the European Space Agency's Rosetta, which became the first ever to land a robotic spacecraft on a comet, and NASA's Deep Impact, which blasted a crater on Comet Tempel 1 to study its interior.
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