Tag Archives: Comets

All About Comets

Posted on November 18, 2024 by Matthew Marcus

In popular media, comets are often depicted as huge balls of fire streaking across the sky. See Sozin’s Comet from Avatar the Last Airbender as an example: It may then be surprising to learn that asteroids are small, ice-rich bodies that are completely frozen for the majority of their life cycles. Comets tend to have […] Continue reading →

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Comets: What are they?

Posted on November 13, 2024 by Catherine Sack

Comets are icy, small bodies containing rock, frozen gases, and dust. Referred to as “cosmic snowballs”, comets are found in the outer parts of the solar system like the Kuiper Belt or the Oort Cloud. A comet is made up of 3 parts: nucleus, coma, and tail. The nucleus is its icy center. The coma […] Continue reading →

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The Most Famous Comet

Posted on April 8, 2024 by Garrett

The Bayeux tapestry For my blog post I wanted to focus on comets. I figured I would do some research on the only comet I knew by name before taking astronomy, Halley’s Comet. Halley is the most famous of its kind and its presence in our history goes back more than 1000 years. Halley was […] Continue reading →

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Comets – Blog Post #5 – Cameron Klein

Posted on April 7, 2024 by Cameron Klein

After learning briefly about asteroids and comets during previous units, I became intrigued by them. I had known a little bit about comets and where they are located within our solar system, but as I was reading about this in our textbook, I realized just how much more there was to learn. Comets are extremely […] Continue reading →

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Differences Between the Oort Cloud and Kuiper Belt

Posted on April 5, 2024 by katie shapiro

There are as many comets in the sky as fishes in the ocean. -Johannes Kepler Going into this class I knew that comets came from the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud, however, I never put much thought into why comets are in these two areas. For some context, comets are considered “dirty snowballs” because […] Continue reading →

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Comets and Their Periods

Posted on April 9, 2023 by Trevor Pillow

Comets are characterized by their highly eccentric orbits and incredibly long periods. Comet Swift-Tuttle, for example, has an orbital period of 133 years. This is comparable to the orbital period of the furthest planet from the Sun, Neptune, which has a period of 165 years. From our perspective on Earth, 150 years is a long […] Continue reading →

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Comets

Posted on April 8, 2023 by zws42

Comets are Kuiper Belt objects composed of chunks of rock and various ices. For the majority of their orbits they are a long way away from the Sun and don’t have the characteristic tail that we are used to seeing. However, as the comet dives back into the inner solar system, the radiation from the […] Continue reading →

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The Kuiper Belt: Exploring New Horizons

Posted on April 7, 2023 by 7smessier45

Hello (again), and welcome (back) to my Astronomy Blog! Today’s post is about the Kuiper Belt and its objects.  What is the Kuiper Belt?  The Kuiper (Kai-per) Belt is a donut-shaped region beyond the orbit of Neptune. Within the Kuiper Belt, it is estimated that millions of icy objects (or even trillions of these objects, […] Continue reading →

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comets

Posted on April 6, 2023 by Emma Williams

The terms ‘asteroid’ and ‘comet’ are often used interchangeably, but in reality there are important differences between the two! The primary difference is in their composition; asteroids are rocky because they formed in the inner Solar System, and comets are more icy because they formed beyond the frost line! Comets are visible every few years […] Continue reading →

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There’s A Comet Coming Our Way!?!

Posted on March 7, 2023 by thisisntzenon

As discussed in the textbook, most comets are not visible within Earth because they rarely pass through the inner solar system. Alternatively, they orbit the Sun within the Kuiper belt and Oort Cloud. Previously my knowledge of comet’s was bound to Halley’s comet, which is arguably one of the most famous of the comets to […] Continue reading →

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