Comets and Stardust

Astronomy Club

December 13th, 2006

Structure of a Comet

Ion Tail

Dust Tail

Coma

To Sun

Comet Composition

• Nucleus– 10 km “Dirty Snowball”– Rocks and ice

• Coma – gas around the nucleus– Cloud of evaporated ices and ions– may be 100,000 km in diameter

• Tail– Always points away from Sun

• Solar Wind and Radiation Pressure

Comet Hale-Bopp

1997—Comet Hale-Bopp

Can you spot the coma, gas tail, and curved dust tail?

The Oort Cloud

• Birthplace of long-period comets

• there is no preferential direction from which comets come.

• Consists of debris left over from the condensation of the solar nebula

Bayeaux TapestryNorman Invasion of 1066

Comet Halley

Comet Halley

Hale-Bopp

Hyakutake

Hale-Bopp

Comet West

Comet Wild 2

Stardust

Stardust Spacecraft

Launched on Feb. 7, 1999 by NASA

Encounter January 2004

Earth Return January 2006

Aerogel

Sample Return Capsule & Collector Grid

Stardust @ Home!

• http://stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/• Help scientist to find stardust particles in

the gel slides save time• “By asking for help from talented

volunteers like you … we can do this project in months instead of years. “

• This is a tutorial: http://stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ss_tutorial_start.php

For more information

• http://stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/

• www.physics.sfasu.edu/markworth/ast105/Minor-Bodies.ppt

• http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/DLN/descriptions/presentations/sb_comet_wild_2_stardust.ppt

• Wikipedia