4OortCloudandComets

** Oort cloud and comets **



This is the oort cloud, it is a sphereica lshell of cometary bodies. It is beleived to suerround the sun, beyond pluto's orbit. The oort cloud is about 30 trillion km(18 trillion miles) The oort cloud was first proposed by a dutch astronomer by the name of Jan Oort. Thus, named the oort cloud. The Oort cloud contains thousands of icy bodies. Ocassilonally, passing stars will disturb the orbit of one of the bodies. This causes the body to streak out towards the sun.(comets)

comets are solid rock, ice and dust. It consists of a few major parts. First ther is the core. then the coma, last is the tail. The tail is formed by the icy bod y releasing gas and dust. They lose the gas and dust as they return to the inner solar system. There are several varieties of comets. Short period comets in particular come from the kuiper belt. A specific comet for example, Hale-bopp has an orbital period of 4,000 years, where as Haley's comet is veiwed every 76 years.
 * COMETS **

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 * Extra solar objects **

Planets, stars, and moons are not the only solar objects in our solar system; besides the oort clouds and comets. There are plenty of extra solar objects. Such as, asteroids, meteors, and meteorites. Asteroids, for example are rocky metallic object, most of which orbit the sun in the asteroid belt. The asteroid belt is foind between Jupiter and mars. the asteroid belt is not a smooth solar object, it consists of numerous gaps, called Kirkwood gaps. Some asteroids free float in space. Gaspra is one of then, an asteroid 10 miles long. Meteors and meteorites are in the same family. Meteorites are peices broken off from large meteors. We often witness these meteors, they are commenly known as shooting stars. They appear as they do by entering the earths atmosphere at very high speeds. This sets them on fire, creating a shooting star effect. Lastley, meteorites are mearley large chung broken of a meteor. Specifically, it is the peice of meteor that impacted the earth's surface.



The Kuiper belt

The kuiper belt is a large ring on extra solar objects that completley surround our solar system.More aoround the lines of a disk shape. It consists of thousands of what astronomers call, "Kuiper belt objects", or (KBO'S). The kuiper belt is located past Neptunes orbit. It is roughly 30 to 50 AU's from the sun. Around 1997 pluto was classified as as minor planet, and placed in the kuiper belt as a KBO.

FUN FACTS


 * Aseroids can range from 20ft to 580miles
 * some asteroids can get bigger than the state of RI.
 * New KBO's are found every 20 minutes.
 * First KBO toof 4 to 5 yrs to discover
 * Haley's comet is most known for its famous double tail
 * Hale-Bopp was the first comet veiwed by man
 * meteor showers are also known as shooting stars

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​ WEB LINKS​


 * [|www.nasa.gov]
 * [|www.oarval.com]
 * [|www.enchantedlearning.com]

MLA BIBLIOGRAPHY​
 * Miller, Ron, __Asteroids, Comets, Meteors__,Twenty first centry books, Minneapolis Minn, 2006
 * World Book, world book inc., Chicago, 2007
 * [|www.universetoday.com]