Out of all the phenomena that occur within our galaxy, comets are one of the most amazing. Being the most well-known, it’s safe to say that when talking about these small bodies, Halley’s Comet comes to mind. Even though it only graces us with its presence about once every 75 years, Halley’s Comet continues to astonish us to this day. Despite centuries of observation, there is still much to learn about comets. Comets consist of three main parts: the tail, coma, and nucleus. The tail, which is made of a narrow column of dust and gas, is the largest part of the comet and can extend up to 100 million kilometers across the inner solar system. It is only visible when the comet is within 3 AU's of the Sun. The coma is a cloud of gas that can have a diameter of 100,000 kilometers, and it is created by the heat of the Sun boiling the core or nucleus of the comet. The nucleus is often referred to as a giant "iceberg" or "dirty snowball" and is a block of ice with an irregular mass and a diameter of about 10 kilometers. The Oort cloud, which is an assemblage of trillions of icy bodies, is a spherical shell that completely surrounds the Solar System and is believed to be the origin of long-period comets that now orbit the Sun. Short-period comets come from the Kuiper Belt, a doughnut-shaped ring extending just beyond the orbit of Neptune from about 30 to 55 AU. Astronomers believe that Halley's Comet, which is considered a short-period comet, also originates from the Kuiper Belt. Halley's Comet has a nucleus with dimensions of 10 x 5 x 5 miles and travels at a speed of 157,838 miles per hour, making it one of the speediest comets in the night sky. Although spectators on Earth can only view Halley once every 75 years or so, remnants of the famous comet are evident more frequently. Earth passes through the dust debris of Halley once in May and again in October during the meteor showers Eta-Aquarid and Orionid, respectively. Halley's Comet has been observed once every 75.3 years for the last 2,200 years, and the earliest recorded sighting was in the year 240 B.C. by the Chinese. Babylonian tablets show visits by Halley recorded in 164 B.C. and again in 87 B.C.
Recently, many people believed to have witnessed via a viral video, U.F.O. unidentified flying object sighting directly above the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, Israel, yet solid research quickly disproved this occurrence as another contemporary hoax. Sightings such as this one date back to June 24th, 1947, when Kenneth Arnold reportedly saw a “flying saucer” (Dash). There are many people around the world, who believe wholeheartedly in unidentified flying objects. Moreover, when Mr. Arnold made his claim of seeing a U.F.O., there were many futile arguments between believers and non-believers. Nowadays however, thanks to modern technology, people can record the alleged sighting by means such as video and still pictures.
The spacecraft structure greatly influenced the impact of this mission on science history. The spacecraft itself weighed 503 kilograms, or 1,108 pounds. The fuel weighed twenty-nine kilograms, or sixty-four pounds. The adapter weighed thirty kilograms, or sixty-six pounds (Hamilton 1). Measuring the spacecraft diagonally resulted in 1.39 meters, or 4.56 feet. The depth measurements came out to .457 meters, or 1.5 feet (Hamilton 1). Two solar panels were strategically placed on top, both 2.7 meters, otherwise known as 8.86 feet, in perimeter measurements (Hamilton 1). This eight-sided spacecraft was also equipped wi...
Halley’s Comet may have passed within 0.03 AU, or 3.2 million miles from Earth in 837 A.D., which is its closest approach. The comet’s tail extended nearly 60 degrees across the sky. This sighting was written by astronomers in Japan, China, Germany, and the Middle East. Halley was seen in England in 1066, and it was thought to be a bad omen, for later that same year, Harold II of England died. William the Conquerer interpreted Halley as the cause for his success in battle, as the comet is depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry as a flaming ...
There are two meteor showers associated with Perseus—the Perseids and the September Perseids. The Perseid meteor shower is the most impressive one. It is visible in August, and the Perseus constellation is its radiant point. (Perseus Champion, Perseus Constellation, Perseus He-ro)
The Kuiper Belt is an icy-bodied disc shapes area of the Solar System. Kuiper Belt has a circular shape, to be exact, it is a curved plane. It is over 4.5 to 7.4 billion kilometers from Sun. This is roughly 30 to 50 times the distance of Earth from Sun. The Kuiper Belt has been said to resemble the Asteroid Belt that lies between Mars and Jupiter. The difference between the Kuiper Belt and the Asteroid Belt is that the bodies are icier due to their distance from the Sun. The Kuiper Belt objects includes Pluto and other comets that orbit beyond Neptune. Most Kuiper Belt objects are made up of frozen volatiles such as methane, water and ammonia. In 1950 astronomer Gerald Kuiper predicted the existence of the Kuiper Belt and the find was named
The sensitive instruments aboard the SOHO spacecraft have already helped scientists here on Earth discover and explain some of the mysteries of the Sun as well as to confirm some of their theories they previously held. For example, in May of 1998 with the help of the Michelson Doppler Interferometer scientists were able to see with greater clarity the giant convective cells inside and on the surface of the Sun.
The Failure of the De Havilland Comet Aircraft Following World War II and the jet engine technology that emerged largely toward its end, aerospace engineers knew well that the technology had great potential for use in the commercial aviation industry. The Comet was the first aircraft to utilize jet propulsion; however, its designers failed to consider the metallurgy of the aircraft’s materials under flight conditions or the consequences of their atypical window design. The aircraft was designed by Britain’s De Havilland Aircraft Company and entered service in May 1952. After a year of service, however, the design issues mentioned above resulted in the failure of several Comet aircraft. Extensive evaluations revealed that repeated pressurization
The Orion Nebula is one of the closest stellar regions to the Earth. Using parallax measurements, it has been estimated that this nebula is only 1,500 light years away. In addition, the Orion Nebula is a relatively young star cluster, with an approximate age of less than one million years. It has even been speculated that some of the younger stars within the cluster are only 300,000 years old.
Solar nebula is a rotating flattened disk of gas and dust in which the outer part of the disk became planets while the center bulge part became the sun. Its inner part is hot, which is heated by a young sun and due to the impact of the gas falling on the disk during its collapse. However, the outer part is cold and far below the freezing point of water. In the solar nebula, the process of condensation occurs after enough cooling of solar nebula and results in the formation into a disk. Condensation is a process of cooling the gas and its molecules stick together to form liquid or solid particles. Therefore, condensation is the change from gas to liquid. In this process, the gas must cool below a critical temperature. Accretion is the process in which the tiny condensed particles from the nebula begin to stick together to form bigger pieces. Solar nebular theory explains the formation of the solar system. In the solar nebula, tiny grains stuck together and created bigger grains that grew into clumps, possibly held together by electrical forces similar to those that make lint stick to your clothes. Subsequent collisions, if not too violent, allowed these smaller particles to grow into objects ranging in size from millimeters to kilometers. These larger objects are called planetesimals. As planetesimals moved within the disk and collide with one another, planets formed. Because astronomers have no direct way to observe how the Solar System formed, they rely heavily on computer simulations to study that remote time. Computer simulations try to solve Newton’s laws of motion for the complex mix of dust and gas that we believe made up the solar nebula. Merging of the planetesimals increased their mass and thus their gravitational attraction. That, in turn, helped them grow even more massive by drawing planetesimals into clumps or rings around the sun. The process of planets building undergoes consumption of most of the planetesimals. Some survived planetesimals form small moons, asteroids, and comets. The leftover Rocky planetesimals that remained between Jupiter and Mars were stirred by Jupiter’s gravitational force. Therefore, these Rocky planetesimals are unable to assemble into a planet. These planetesimals are known as asteroids. Formation of solar system is explained by solar nebular theory. A rotating flat disk with center bulge is the solar nebula. The outer part of the disk becomes planets and the center bulge becomes the sun.
Later after Copernicus came Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei, who confirmed some of Copernicus’ observations. Kepler provided concise evidence of planetary motion regarding their path around the s...
This is the Scholarly Journal Archive. 2. Letters Planet Pluto Gerard P. Kuiper Science, New Series, Vol. 124, No. 2 -. 3216. The. Aug. 17, 1956, p. 322.
Perhaps one of the most interesting features of our fathomless universe are the planets that are classified as gas giants. Huge, turbulent, and distant, the gas giants are some of the most enigmatic features in our Solar System. I have a personal interest to the gas giants and celestial bodies in general. When I was a child, I was fascinated by our Solar System. I read innumerable books about space, and my interests of outer space had been piqued further by other forms of media. Although I held this interest of space, growing up left me with little time to learn about space, and I lost interest for a while. Taking Earth Science in Milpitas High re-invigorated my interests in the celestial bodies. Using this class, I’m now able to focus on learning more about our colossal universe, in particular, the outer planets.
...eaky fast reflexes needed to avoid an asteroid. Asteroids have collided with each other before, but it is super rare considering how far apart from each other they are.
Tyler, Pat. Supernova. NASA’s Heasarc: Education and Public Information. 26 Jan. 2003. 22 Nov. 2004
The idea behind the Solar Nebular Hypothesis is that the solar system was condensed from an enormous cloud of hydrogen, helium, and a few other elements and rocks. Around five billion years this cloud of materials began to spin and contract together into a disk shape under their own gravitational forces. The particles started combined together, protoplanets, to eventually form planets. A great mass of the material eventually began to form together, protosun, and make up the sun.