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
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