Comets Final.docx

COMETS

Submitted By Ankita Priyadarshini Mohanty B.Sc. final year Roll no-31316004 Guided by –dr. c. r. Dwivedi

CONTENTS       

INTRODUCTION ORIGIN TYPES STRUCTURE parts HALLEY’S COMET CONCLUSION

What are Comets?  Comets are celestial bodies of small mass that travel around the Sun, usually in elongated orbits. They become visible as they near the Sun and sometimes they form a visible tail. This is an icy body that releases gas or dust. They are often compared to dirty snowballs, though recent research hassled some scientists to call them snowy dirt balls.

Origin of comets  Most comets come from the Oort cloud, the spherical shell of trillions of icy bodies believed to lie far beyond Pluto’s orbit to a distance of about 150,000 AU.

Kuiper Belt The Kuiper belt occasionally called the Edgeworth Kuiper belt, is a circumstellar disc in the outer, solar system extending from the orbit of Neptune (at 30 AU) to approximately 50 AU from the sun. . This is an area around the sun that extend up to 30 to 100 AU.

Types of comets Short Period Comets Short period comets have an orbital period of less than 200 years. 200 years sounds like a long period but in cometary terms, this is quite short. The most famous short period comet is Comet Halley with an orbital period of 75-76 years. It’s thought that short period comets originate from the Kuiper belt.

Long Period Comets 

Long period comets, on the other hand, are thought to originate from the Oort cloud with periods of over 200 years and at random inclinations around the celestial sphere.

Structure of comet A comet far from the sun consists of a dense solid body or conglomerate of bodies a few miles in diameter called the nucleus. As it approaches the sun the nucleus becomes enveloped by a luminous cloud of dust and gases called the coma. The nucleus consists of frozen water and gases with particles of heavier substances interspersed throughout, thus being in effect a large, dirty snowball.

Parts of comet: The Nucleus The Nucleus essentially comprises the entire comet when it is far from the sun, during which time It is frozen. The cold, solid nucleus warms as it approaches the Sun and the comet begins to transform. Expelled water, dust, gas and debris form a fuzzy haze around the nucleus called the coma. This happens when the comet is about 7.5x10^8 km from the sun

The Coma

 Expelled water, dust, gas and debris form a fuzzy haze around the nucleus called the coma. This happens when the comet is about 7.5 x 10^8 km from the sun

The Dust Tail  As the nucleus and coma move closer to our Sun, the comet continues its transformation into one of the most breath-taking objects on our solar system. There can even be more than one Dust tail. Some ionized gases are pushed directly away from the Sun by the Sun’s high speed solar wind. These ionized gases form the comet’s blue, ion tail. Both the ion and dust tail(s) can be hundreds of thousands or even millions of miles long.

The Ion Tail Some ionized gases are pushed directly away from the Sun by the Sun’s high speed solar wind. These ionized gases form the comet’s blue, ion tail. 

Both the ion and dust tail(s) can be hundreds of thousands or even millions of miles long.

Halley’s comet Halley's Comet or Comet Halley, officially designated by Edmund Halley, is a shortperiod comet visible from Earth every 75–76 years. Halley is the only known short-period comet that is regularly visible to the naked eye from Earth, and the only naked-eye comet that might appear twice in a human lifetime. Halley last appeared in the inner parts of the Solar System in 1986 and will next appear in mid-2061.

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