What Are Comets? Meaning And Explanation And More
COMETS – In this topic, we will now know and discuss about comets, its meaning, explanation and more things you need to know.
These are cosmic snowballs of frozen gases, rock and dust that orbits the Sun. They are about the size of a small town.
According to NASA, as it draws near the sun, it gets heat up and emits dust and gasses into a glowing head that is bigger than most planets.
The emitted dust and gases form a tail that reaches away from the Sun for millions of miles. As of now there are billions of comets that is currently orbiting the sun in two celestial bodies:
- Kuiper Belt – a Solar System region that exists beyond the eight planets that form the system. Named after Gerard Kuper, who theorized where these snowballs came from
- Oort Cloud – a cloud of icy planetesimals that surrounds the sun.
As of now, NASA said that the current known number of comets is 3,588.
These are usually named after a person or a spacecraft who discover them. Here are the known comets:
- Halley’s Comet
- Named after British astronomer Edmund Halley which can be seen every 76 earth years.
- Comet Hale-Bopp
- The most widely observed comet of the 20th century. Named after Alan Hale and Thomas Bopp
- 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko
- A comet from the Jupiter family with an orbital period of 6.45 years. Discovered by two Soviet astronomers Klim Ivanovych Churyumov and Svetlana Ivanovna Gerasimenko.
- Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9
- A comet that broke apart and collided with the planet Jupiter. Discovered by Carolyn and Eugene M. Shoemaker and David Levy.
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