Comet Trivia II

COMET TRIVIA II

11) What did the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 collide with?

THE SUN JUPITER ANOTHER COMET SPACE STATION

The comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 collided spectacularly with Jupiter in 1994, with the giant planet's gravitational pull ripping the comet apart for at least 21 visible impacts. The largest collision created a fireball that rose about 1,800 miles (3,000 km) above the Jovian cloud tops as well as a giant dark spot more than 7,460 miles (12,000 km) across--about the size of the Earth--and was estimated to have exploded with the force of 6,000 gigatons of TNT.

12) Where do short-period comets originate?

KUIPER BELT THE SUN OORT CLOUD OTHER SOLAR SYSTEMS

Short-period comets originate in the Kuiper belt, which lies beyond the orbit of Neptune and consists mainly of small bodies or remnants from when the Solar System formed. Long-period comets are thought to originate in the Oort cloud, a spherical cloud of icy bodies extending from outside the Kuiper belt to halfway to the nearest star.

13) How many known comets are there?

~66,000 ~6,600 ~660,000 ~660

As of July 2019 there were 6,619 known comets, a number that is steadily increasing as they are discovered. However, this represents only a tiny fraction of the total potential comet population, as the reservoir of comet-like bodies in the outer Solar System (in the Oort cloud) is estimated to be one trillion.

14) How often are comets visible to the naked eye?

ONCE EVERY 100 YEARS ONCE EVERY 1000 YEARS ONCE EVERY YEAR ONCE EVERY 10 YEARS

Roughly one comet per year is visible to the naked eye, though many of those are faint and unspectacular. Particularly bright examples are called "great comets".

15) Comets have their own _______.

ATMOSPHERE MAGNETIC FIELD LAKES CONTINENTS

The atmosphere of a comet, called its "coma," is made of gas and dust that spew out of the sun-warmed nucleus. The atmosphere of a typical comet is wider than Jupiter.

16) What kind of orbit do comets have?

ELLIPTICAL PARABOLIC HYPERBOLIC ALL OF THESE

Comets usually have highly eccentric elliptical orbits. Some comets, however, have a parabolic orbit, meaning they will make only a single visit to the inner solar system, and some comets making their first visit to the inner Solar System from the Oort Cloud may follow hyperbolic trajectories, never to return.

17) What was the first unmanned probe to successfully land on a comet?

GENESIS NEW HORIZONS ROSETTA STARDUST

On 6 August 2014, the European Space Agency's Rosetta reached comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and performed a series of manoeuvres to eventually orbit the comet at distances of 30 to 10 kilometres (19 to 6 mi). On 12 November, its lander module Philae performed the first successful landing on a comet, though its battery power ran out two days later.