New scientific information about the comets of the solar system. Everything you wanted to know about meteorites, asteroids and comets. Asteroid sizes: how big can they be?

People watching a falling star in the sky may wonder, what is a comet? This word translated from Greek means “long-haired”. As it approaches the Sun, the asteroid begins to heat up and takes on an effective appearance: dust and gas begin to fly away from the surface of the comet, forming a beautiful, bright tail.

The appearance of comets

The appearance of comets is almost impossible to predict. Scientists and amateurs have been paying attention to them since ancient times. Large celestial bodies rarely fly past the Earth, and such a sight is fascinating and terrifying. History contains information about such bright bodies that sparkle through the clouds, eclipsing even the Moon with their glow. It was with the appearance of the first such body (in 1577) that the study of the movement of comets began. The first scientists were able to discover dozens of different asteroids: their approach to the orbit of Jupiter begins with the glow of their tail, and the closer the body is to our planet, the brighter it burns.

It is known that comets are bodies that move along certain trajectories. Usually it has an elongated shape, and is characterized by its position relative to the Sun.

The comet's orbit may be the most unusual. From time to time, some of them return to the Sun. Scientists say that such comets are periodic: they fly near planets after a certain period of time.

Comets

Since ancient times, people have called any luminous body a star, and those with tails behind them have been called comets. Later, astronomers discovered that comets are huge solid bodies, consisting of large ice fragments mixed with dust and stones. They come from deep space and can either fly past or orbit the Sun, periodically appearing in our sky. Such comets are known to move in elliptical orbits of varying sizes: some return once every twenty years, while others appear once every hundreds of years.

Periodic comets

Scientists know a lot of information about periodic comets. Their orbits and return times are calculated. The appearance of such bodies is not unexpected. Among them there are short-period and long-period.

Short-period comets include comets that can be seen in the sky several times in a lifetime. Others may not appear in the sky for centuries. One of the most famous short-period comets is Halley's Comet. It appears near the Earth once every 76 years. The length of this giant's tail reaches several million kilometers. It flies so far from us that it seems like a stripe in the sky. Her last visit was recorded in 1986.

Fall of comets

Scientists know of many cases of asteroids falling on planets, and not only on Earth. In 1992, the Shoemaker-Levy giant came very close to Jupiter and was torn into numerous pieces by its gravity. The fragments stretched out into a chain and then moved away from the planet’s orbit. Two years later, the chain of asteroids returned to Jupiter and fell on it.

According to some scientists, if an asteroid flies in the center of the solar system, it will live for many thousands of years until it evaporates, flying once again near the Sun.

Comet, asteroid, meteorite

Scientists have identified the difference in the meaning of asteroids, comets, and meteorites. Ordinary people call these names any bodies seen in the sky and having tails, but this is not correct. From a scientific point of view, asteroids are huge blocks of stone floating in space in certain orbits.

Comets are similar to asteroids, but they have more ice and other elements. When approaching close to the Sun, comets develop a tail.

Meteorites are small rocks and other space debris, less than a kilogram in size. They are usually visible in the atmosphere as shooting stars.

Famous comets

The brightest comet of the twentieth century was Comet Hale-Bopp. It was discovered in 1995, and two years later it became visible in the sky with the naked eye. It could be observed in celestial space for more than a year. This is much longer than the radiance of other bodies.

In 2012, scientists discovered Comet ISON. According to forecasts, it should have become the brightest, but, approaching the Sun, it could not meet the expectations of astronomers. However, it was nicknamed in the media “the comet of the century.”

The most famous is Halley's comet. She played an important role in the history of astronomy, including helping to deduce the law of gravity. The first scientist to describe celestial bodies was Galileo. His information was processed more than once, changes were made, new facts were added. Once Halley drew attention to a very unusual pattern of the appearance of three celestial bodies with an interval of 76 years and moving almost on the same trajectory. He concluded that these were not three different bodies, but one. Newton later used his calculations to construct a theory of gravity, which was called the theory of universal gravitation. Halley's Comet was last seen in the sky in 1986, and its next appearance will be in 2061.

In 2006, Robert McNaught discovered the celestial body of the same name. According to assumptions, it should not have glowed brightly, but as it approached the Sun, the comet began to quickly gain brightness. A year later, it began to glow brighter than Venus. Flying near the Earth, the celestial body created a real spectacle for earthlings: its tail curved in the sky.

Find in additional literature and the Internet new scientific information about the Sun or information about interesting celestial bodies of the Solar System - comets, asteroids. Prepare a message.

Answer

The sun is the center of our solar system; a lot of what happens on Earth depends on it. Therefore, it is interesting to find out what the Sun is like, what is happening there.

The Sun is an ordinary star, its age is about 5 billion years, its surface temperature is 5500 ° C, its distance from the Earth is 149.6 million km. At the center of the Sun the temperature reaches 14 million degrees.

The sun gives the Earth warmth and light, supports life on our planet.

The Sun is a fiery ball of gas, the diameter of which is 109 times the diameter of the Earth. More than a million Earth-sized celestial bodies could fit inside such a ball.

There are spots on the surface of the Sun, bright flashes and explosions of colossal power occur. Solar flares and explosions release huge masses of electrically charged particles into space, which affects the Earth's atmosphere. When streams of electrically charged particles reach the Earth, they create amazing “curtains” of flickering light in our skies, which are visible in the polar regions and are called auroras. Powerful explosions that occur on the Sun are also fraught with danger. Streams of electrically charged particles flying from the Sun disable power plants, destroying their equipment. Solar flares are also dangerous for astronauts: you should not go into outer space when they occur. Particles emitted by the flash and carrying high energy can harm the human body. On Earth, you should also not stay under the scorching rays of the Sun for a long time. You can get severe skin burns and skin diseases, as well as cause disruption of the heart and nervous system.

The existence of the Earth and life on it directly depend on the Sun. The question arises: how long will our star last? Scientists have concluded that the Sun will not exist forever, although it has an incredibly long life ahead of it. The Sun is now in middle age. Scientists suggest that over the next 5 billion years the Sun will slowly warm up and increase slightly in size. When all the hydrogen in the Sun's central core is used up, the Sun will become three times larger than it is now. All the oceans on Earth will boil away. The dying Sun will engulf the Earth. Ultimately, the Sun will cool down, turning into a ball, the so-called white dwarf.

But all this will happen in billions of years, many thousands of generations will change on Earth. Rapidly developing science and technology will allow humanity to discover new worlds and planets in the Universe and master them in advance for habitation and further development of humanity.

And today we should take care of our planet and follow the advice and requirements of environmentalists. After all, the preservation of life on Earth depends on each of us.

Other celestial bodies.

Comets

Rushing at enormous speeds and traveling through the vast orbits of the universe, comets, as these celestial bodies are called, consist of a bright, luminous head and an incredibly long (up to 100 million km) trail of tail. These solitary wanderers can move away for a long time beyond the solar system and return to rush closer to our planet, moving over the gigantic distances of their orbit.

Asteroids

Like planets, only of very small size, asteroids revolve around the Sun, they have a rocky surface structure and in some characteristics are similar to small planets, which is why they are sometimes called “small planets”. The largest concentration of asteroids is located between Mars and Jupiter; this zone is called the “asteroid belt”. Asteroids have a variety of sizes: small from a few tens of centimeters in diameter, like a kitchen saucepan, and large with a diameter of up to 250 km or more. Thus, the largest known asteroid, Ceres, has a diameter of 1000 km. Meteorites

Falling stars- this is the name of the meteor shower, which occurs every year at the beginning of August and at other intervals throughout the year. Sometimes “shooting star” meteorites can be seen with the naked eye; they flash like a spark striking the blue of the night sky for a fraction of a second. These are small particles of cosmic dust that fall to Earth and, evaporating in dense layers of the atmosphere, leave a short, bright mark on the starry sky.

A comet in the sky is a rare guest. Many interesting facts are known about comets. From time immemorial, people have collected information about celestial bodies and sought to understand their nature, measure their sizes, and understand their structure. The stars appear as small dots, but millions of kilometers separate the curious observer on Earth from the distant star. Without astronomical knowledge, it is impossible to form even an approximate opinion about the size of the celestial body. You will be wrong by several orders of magnitude.

A comet in the sky seems huge next to other celestial bodies. But what are its real dimensions and what is it like?
Any comet consists of 3 parts: the nucleus, the coma and the tail.

Core.
The core is the solid part that contains most of the mass of the celestial body. The size of the core usually varies within a few kilometers. By earthly standards it is a big mountain, but by cosmic standards it is nothing.
Kernel composition:
1. Cosmic dust.
2. Frozen gases.
3. Other solids.

Coma.
Moving along an elliptical trajectory, the comet periodically approaches the Sun, the gases begin to expand and the comet becomes as we see it now. Coma - a cloud of gases around the comet's nucleus. The size of a coma can reach a million kilometers, this is comparable to the size of the Sun. Violent chemical processes occur inside the coma.
The coma and nucleus are the head of the comet, and there is also a tail.

Comet tail.
A cloud of gases, molten by the sun's temperature, begins to dissipate around the comet, and as it moves, this cloud takes the shape of a tail and trails behind it. In the sky we see the tail of a comet, the size of which reaches several solar diameters. The different shapes of comet tails are explained by different gas compositions. Different gases react differently to temperature and have different properties, chemical structures, and expand differently.

Interesting facts about comets, collected in one place:

1. The word "comet" originates from ancient Greece, meaning "long-haired". Since the Greeks considered them stars with flowing hair.
2. Jupiter, due to its enormous mass, can influence gravity and therefore change the direction of comets. Very often the trajectory of movement changes in an incomprehensible way, frightening scientists.
3. These celestial bodies can collide with both stars (the Sun) and planets. Researchers have recorded the collision of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with Jupiter.
4. Strange sounds emanate from the comet, reminiscent of singing. The reason for this phenomenon is the expansion of the gas cloud.
5. The comet has a specific smell. It can be simulated on Earth by combining together a mixture of various gases (mainly ammonia, methane, hydrogen).
6. In ancient times they were harbingers of wars and disasters.
7. Quite often, a comet can have two tails - dust and gas (can extend for hundreds of millions of kilometers, for example, the tail of Hyakutaki is 580 million km). This is due to gravity and the difference in the specific gravity of gases and dust.
8. 90% of its mass is concentrated in the core, the length of which can reach 40 km (average - 16 km).
9. In deep space, a comet looks like an ordinary block of ice. The tail appears only when approaching the Sun.
10. Once every 10 years, a celestial body can be seen with the naked eye.
11. In 1910, Halley's tail hit the Earth.
12. The first to document the passage of Halley's Comet were the Chinese in 240 BC.
13. Scientists have determined that there are more than two million comets in the Solar System.
14. At the moment, 4 thousand bodies are registered.
15. In 2014, the first landing of an artificial apparatus on the nucleus of the comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko was carried out. It took 9 years to get closer.

A comet is a small celestial body consisting of ice interspersed with dust and rock debris. As it approaches the sun, the ice begins to evaporate, leaving a tail behind the comet, sometimes stretching for millions of kilometers. The comet's tail is made of dust and gas.

Comet orbit

As a rule, the orbit of most comets is an ellipse. However, circular and hyperbolic trajectories along which icy bodies move in outer space are also quite rare.

Comets passing through the solar system

Many comets pass through the solar system. Let's focus on the most famous space wanderers.

Comet Arend-Roland was first discovered by astronomers in 1957.

Halley's Comet passes near our planet once every 75.5 years. Named after the British astronomer Edmund Halley. The first mentions of this celestial body are found in Chinese ancient texts. Perhaps the most famous comet in the history of civilization.

Comet Donati was discovered in 1858 by the Italian astronomer Donati.

Comet Ikeya-Seki was noticed by Japanese amateur astronomers in 1965. It was bright.

Comet Lexel was discovered in 1770 by the French astronomer Charles Messier.

Comet Morehouse was discovered by American scientists in 1908. It is noteworthy that photography was used for the first time in its study. It was distinguished by the presence of three tails.

Comet Hale-Bopp was visible in 1997 with the naked eye.

Comet Hyakutake was observed by scientists in 1996 at a short distance from Earth.

Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann was first noticed by German astronomers in 1927.

"Young" comets have a bluish tint. This is due to the presence of a large amount of ice. As the comet orbits the sun, the ice melts and the comet takes on a yellowish hue.

Most comets come from the Kuiper belt, which is a collection of frozen bodies that are located near Neptune.

If the comet's tail is blue and turned away from the Sun, this is evidence that it consists of gases. If the tail is yellowish and turned towards the Sun, then it contains a lot of dust and other impurities that are attracted to the star.

Study of comets

Scientists obtain information about comets visually through powerful telescopes. However, in the near future (in 2014), the ESA Rosetta spacecraft is planned to be launched to study one of the comets. It is assumed that the device will remain near the comet for a long time, accompanying the space wanderer on its journey around the Sun.

Note that NASA previously launched the Deep Impact spacecraft to collide with one of the solar system’s comets. Currently, the device is in good condition and is used by NASA to study icy cosmic bodies.

Everything that happens in the sky has long interested man. Comets flying across the sky usually inspired fear and awe. Let's get acquainted with interesting facts about comets.

Under the influence of gravity, most comets leave the solar system over millions of years. Losing their ice, they break apart as they move.

The Chinese were the first to document the appearance of Halley's comet. It started in 240 BC.

While telling interesting facts about comets, it is necessary to explain the word comet itself. To the ancient Greeks, comets resembled stars flying across the sky with their hair flowing. The word "comet" comes from the Greek word for "long-haired".

A change in the direction of flight of comets can occur for several reasons. When they pass close enough to the planet, the path of motion may change slightly under its influence. The planet most suitable for changing the path of a comet is Jupiter. This is the largest planet. Spacecraft and telescopes were able to capture an image of a comet that crashed when it collided with Jupiter's atmosphere. Her name is Shoemaker-Levy 9. Sometimes comets moving towards the Sun hit it exactly.

Traveling for more than 4.5 billion years, comets are made of dust, ice, rocky material and gases brought from the far depths of the solar system.

Comets, like the planets of the solar system, rotate around the Sun.

Comets located far from the Sun do not have a tail. As they approach the Sun, under the ever-increasing influence of its heat, the melting of the comet's nucleus begins. The solar wind blows the comet's tail from the molten core.

Comets that are far from the sun are cold and completely dark objects. The nucleus contains 90% of the comet's total mass. In its center is a small stone core. The remaining components are ice, dirt and dust. Ice is a mixture of frozen water with admixtures of ammonia, methane and carbon.

Comets are so small relative to the universe that scientists have not yet observed them outside our solar system.

Astronomers have found that there are about two million comets in the solar system. An average of five new comets are discovered each year. The total number of registered comets exceeds three thousand.

We invite you to watch an interesting video where you can see how a huge comet rammed the sun: