Category miscellaneous article facts about comets. Interesting facts about comets. Comets - explanation for children

There are three types of meteorites: lithoseiders are made of rocky materials and iron. They make up only one percent of meteorites. Rocky meteorites, formed only by rocks, are the most numerous. Black meteors, 6% of the total, contain large amounts of iron.

A study of the meteorite reveals interesting data. They are good examples of primordial matter in the solar system, although in some cases their properties have been altered. The only iron known to people in front of the forge, was invented from meteorites. Iron-containing minerals in the earth have no resistance. Extraterrestrial iron set us on the path of metallurgy.

Some past disasters may have been caused by meteorites, such as the extinction of the Cretaceous dinosaurs 65 million years ago, caused by a meteorite about 10 km in diameter. Or at least some astronomers think.





We now know that comets are remnants of early solar system, about 600 million years ago. Comets are composed primarily of ice, covered in organic resting material. They were called dirty snowballs. They may reveal important clues about the formation of our solar system.

Comets likely brought water and organic compounds, the essential elements of life, to the early Earth and other parts of the solar system. Each kite has a small frozen part called the core, which is often no more than a few kilometers long. The core contains chunks of frozen ice and gases with embedded chunks of rock and dust. The core may have a small rocky interior.

These frozen objects, which are sometimes pushed by gravity into orbits that bring them closer to the sun, become what are called short-period comets. It takes them less than 200 years to orbit the Sun, and in many cases their appearance is predictable because they have passed by.

These Oort cloud serpents can take up to 30 million years to complete their journey across the sun. A comet heats up as it approaches the sun and develops an atmosphere, or coma. The heat of the sun causes the underlying ice to turn into gas, so that the coma is enlarged. The coma can have a diameter of hundreds of thousands of kilometers. Pressure from sunlight and high-speed solar particles blows coma materials away from the sun, forming a long and sometimes shiny tail. Comets actually have two tails: one made of powder and one made of plasma.

Most comets travel at a safe distance from the sun: Halley's Comet does not reach more than 89 million kilometers. However, some snakes, called kamikazes or sunrazers, crash into the sun or get so close that they break and evaporate.

Tempted by several images of the nucleus of Halley's Comet taken during Giotto's mission, scientists have wanted to study comets in detail over the years. Photos taken during this close step of the coma nucleus show plumes of dust and a rough textured surface. The samples contained minerals formed near the Sun or other stars.

This finding shows that materials from the inner regions of the solar system moved to the outer regions where comets formed. Along the way to the impact, the impactor's camera took pictures of the comet in great detail. Two cameras and a spectrometer in an adjacent passage recorded the impressive excavation, which revealed the internal composition and structure of the core.

Halley is big, bright comet, which orbits the Sun on average 76 years. This is the only one short comet, which is visible to the naked eye from Earth. These and many other data have led to people becoming interested in this celestial body. For this reason, here are 14 curiosities about Halley's Comet.

This is one of the most famous and striking of the “short periods” kites Kuiper belt. Although there are other colorful kites, Halley's is the only short kite that is visible to the naked eye, so there are many references to its appearances that are best documented.

Short comets with orbits of less than 200 years usually originate from the Kuiper belt; while a long cycle such as Hale-Bopp, whose orbit takes thousands of years, appears to originate from the Oort cloud. Comet Halley is unusual in that it is a short cycle, although its origin lies in the Oort cloud rather than the Kuiper belt. Its orbit indicates that it originally had a long cycle, but was captured by gravitational pull gas giants, so she was trapped inside the solar system.

It was especially pronounced in Halley's comet. This is what would eventually become the most famous comet in the sky: Halley's Comet. His name is associated with Edmund Halley, who was the astronomer who first calculated his orbit. Edmund Halley could never verify that this was true, since he died 16 years ago and only got his calculations wrong a year later. Comet Halle also has its own oddities. There are two types of kites in our solar system, short cycle and long cycle. Halley's Comet boasts membership in both groups, as calculations of its orbit indicate that it originally came from the Oort cloud, but was captured by the gaseous bodies of the Solar System and became a short-chain comet.

Giotto's spacecraft only came within 596 kilometers of Halley's Comet. Comets have always aroused fear and curiosity throughout the world. Regardless of whether they were unforeseen phenomena or their impressive size, they have always been associated with events, usually tragic, in human history. Kite's voice comes from Greek and means mature star. With some exceptions, the ancients believed that these were atmospheric phenomena. For some, these were earthly exhalations that began to heat up when they arrived in the area of ​​​​fire in the sky, for others, they were the spirits of important characters.

In fact, Halley's Comet greatly influenced human history, not because of its "magical" effects, but because of what people believed it could do. Ancient writers attributed to them terrible images: “sabers, swords, cut heads of hair and beards, bristling, shining with the radiance of blood, yellow or purple,” as described by the historian Josephus, who appeared in 66 BC four years before the destruction of Jerusalem.

Today it is known that Halle was one of the first steps. This comet has passed perihelion 30 times since 239 BC. which is the safest of the oldest cases that we have news of. The chronicler of the time, known as the "Astronomer", speaks of the comet in the following terms: On the holy days of Easter there appeared in the sky a phenomenon, always ominous and with sad omens. When the emperor saw him, always attentive to these phenomena, there was no moment of peace. The change of reign and the death of the prince is what announces this phenomenon.

On the advice of the bishops, he devoted himself to prayer and founded monasteries, but despite this, he died three years later. The Giotto mission provided astronomers with their first glimpse of the structure and surface of Halley's Comet. The coma extends over millions of kilometers in space, although its core is relatively small, about 15 kilometers long, 8 wide and 8 tall, with the shape of a peanut. Its albedo is about 4 percent, which indicates that only 4% of the light received is reflected, more or less the same behavior as coal.

Although it appears very bright and white as seen from Earth, Halley's Comet is nonetheless a black body. As it enters the interior of the Solar System and approaches perihelion, the Sun heats its surface, causing its matter to sublimate and passing directly from a solid to a gaseous state, emitting large amounts of volatile gas from its dark surface. The nucleus rotates every 52 hours, and its face is much more active during the day than in the dark. The gas emitted is 80% water vapor, 17% carbon monoxide, 3-4% carbon dioxide, and the rest is traces of hydrocarbons.

The core is covered with a layer of dust that retains heat. Inside this layer of dust there are holes, some with ice and other voids, as well as several craters, about 1 km. Halley is almost unique among comets in that it is large and active, and has a regular and well-defined orbit. This makes it a relatively easy target for astronomers, although it is not the most representative comet. Comet Galli will return to approach the Sun this year. It was the comet from which we began to understand the rest, and the first was also photographed from space.

Photos from space probes show us a potato-shaped comet. Analysis of several space probes, a month after perihelion, when the comet was at a distance from the Sun similar to Venus, gives the following results for the composition of the gas displaced from the nucleus.

Water 71% Carbon monoxide 16% Formaldehyde 6% Carbon dioxide 5% Methane 1% Ammonia 1% Hydrocyanuric acid 0.1%. Halley's Comet was the first to be recognized by the newspaper, its orbit first calculated by astronomer Edmund Halley at Halley, who concluded that they corresponded to the same celestial object that returned every 76 years. At the same time, he made an assessment of the orbit and predicted its appearance within a year. In this case, the attraction of Jupiter and Saturn was the reason for the delay.

Halley could not contemplate the return of his comet. The Southern Hemisphere, but especially some South American countries such as Argentina, were privileged witnesses to the passage of a shower of shooting stars, parts of Halley's Comet, whose trail again passed close to the Earth's atmosphere. The next time an event of this magnitude will occur will be in 51 years.