Where do Comets actually come from?
August 9th 2008 09:51
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It is commonly known that comets originate for a region in space beyond our solar system called the Oort cloud.
The Oort cloud is an immense spherical cloud surrounding the planetary system and extending approximately 3 light years, about 30 trillion kilometers from the Sun. The spherical cloud is the birthplace of many comets, but not all comets come from the Oort cloud.
Gravitational forces from the sun planets and even other stars sometimes alter the orbits of comets and are diverted towards our sun. Previously comets were hard to pinpoint their exact point of origin, as there was no fragment of comet material to anaylse.
It was thought that all comets were made up of mostly frozen water with some carbon dioxide. All this changed when comet Wild 2 was visited by spacecraft called Stardust in 2004.
Stardust captured in Aeorgel cometary fragments and were returned to earth to be anaylsed. Samples and information obtained from Stardust and other spacecraft has put more weight in the theory that comets originated from two regions of space, short period comets originate from the Kuiper belt, a vast expanse of ice and dust left over from the formation of the solar system.
The Kuiper belt is located beyond the orbit of Neptune. The long period comets come from the Oort cloud.
Comets from the Oort cloud are rare visitors to our solar system they only occur when a cometary body is dislodged by gravity from planets or asteroids.
There were a few surprises obtained from the Stardust samples that indicated that some comets were formed form rich deposits of calcium and titanium these comets could not have originated from the Kuiper belt or the Oort cloud because of the high order temperature required to fuse these metals together leading to believe that these comets were formed elswhere from the very early genesis of the solar system when our Sun was forming.
Image CarlCan
The Oort cloud is an immense spherical cloud surrounding the planetary system and extending approximately 3 light years, about 30 trillion kilometers from the Sun. The spherical cloud is the birthplace of many comets, but not all comets come from the Oort cloud.
Gravitational forces from the sun planets and even other stars sometimes alter the orbits of comets and are diverted towards our sun. Previously comets were hard to pinpoint their exact point of origin, as there was no fragment of comet material to anaylse.
It was thought that all comets were made up of mostly frozen water with some carbon dioxide. All this changed when comet Wild 2 was visited by spacecraft called Stardust in 2004.
Stardust captured in Aeorgel cometary fragments and were returned to earth to be anaylsed. Samples and information obtained from Stardust and other spacecraft has put more weight in the theory that comets originated from two regions of space, short period comets originate from the Kuiper belt, a vast expanse of ice and dust left over from the formation of the solar system.
The Kuiper belt is located beyond the orbit of Neptune. The long period comets come from the Oort cloud.
Comets from the Oort cloud are rare visitors to our solar system they only occur when a cometary body is dislodged by gravity from planets or asteroids.
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Comment by CarlCan
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