<< Homepage Astronomy
Astronomy: Comets
|
Comets originate from two regions: the Kuiper Belt and The Oort Cloud. When a comet approaches the Sun, it starts to vapourise. A 'tail' of gas forms, which is pushed out behind the comet by the solar wind. A comet's tail can reach up to ten million km long. It can leave behind trails of gas that can extend several hundred million km further. When these dust and ice from the tail enters the Earth atmosphere we witness meteors and meteorites. Some comets actually have two tails - one of gas and another one inside made up of dust. On average, you can see a comet with the naked eye every five or six years. However, many of these are only just visible, even if you know where to look. More spectacular displays happen about every ten years. Related subjects>> First peek into a comet: Temple 1>> Galileo sees comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 impact into Jupiter in 1994 >> Meteors >> Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt >> The Oort Cloud |
 Comet Hale Bopp Dimensions: 40km Orbital period: 4026 years  13 March 1986 the Italian spacecraft Giotto took the first picture of a nucleus of a comet, Halley's comet. Dimensions of Halley: 16 x 8 x 8km Orbital period: 76 years Next visible from Earth: 2061 In 2005 the first spacecraft Deep Impact flew into the Temple 1 comet, which caused a crater. |
<< previous page