Comets
BY : Andre White
comets are commonly called what ?
dirty snowball
what is the length of a year ?
200 yrs
what are the parts of a comet ?
nucleus, tail, coma
what is the size of a comet normally ?
size of a comet changes depending on how close it is to the sun. a comet gets closer to the sun, the ices on the surface of its nucleus vaporize and form a cloud called a coma around the nucleus that can expand out to 50,000 miles (80,000 km).
whats the composition of a comet ?
composed of an amalgamation of rock, dust, water ice, and frozen gases such as carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, methane, and ammonia.
what is the distance of a comet from the sun ?
186 million km
where does the comets originate ?
Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud. Each of these regions contains billions of comets, but they have so much room in these vast rooms of space that they don't get any closer to each other than we on Earth do to the sun.
what are 3 distinguishing characteristics of a comet ?
periodic comets, sun grazers comets , long period comets
periodic comet
Whitlock, Laura. Comet West. N.d. Nasa, n.p.
sungrazer comet
Erickson, Kristine. Coronagraph. 2011. Nasa, n.p.
Halleysm comet
Liller, Nasaw. "Halley Comet." N.p., n.d. Web.
2 missions that have explored the comet ?
Vega-1 made its closest approach to the comet on 6 March 1986 at a distance of 8890 kilometres. Vega-2 flew in closer to the comet nucleus at a distance of 8030 kilometres on 9 March 1986.
Giotto flew past the nucleus of Comet Halley at a distance of less than 600 kilometres on 13 March 1986