Asteroids and Comets Worksheet

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Clemson University *

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Dec 6, 2023

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Asteroids and Comets Worksheet These lab activities have evolved over many years of use in Clemson University’s Department of Physics and Astronomy general astronomy laboratory. Contributors include, in chronological order, Tom Collins, Mark Leising, Neil Miller, Peter Milne, Grant Williams, Donna Mullenax, Jessica Crist, Keith Davis, Amber Porter, Steven Bromley, and David Connick. Please direct all questions, complaints, and corrections to David Connick (dconnic@clemson.edu) who is responsible for all errors and omissions. Student Name: Nicky - Starbucks Section: Asteroids Each of the yellow dots is an asteroid. You should see that they are primarily grouped in one area. Let time play forward a little to get a feel for the motions and then answer the questions. 1) Where do the majority of the asteroids (main belt asteroids) appear to reside? Describe their location based on the orbits of the planets. - The majority of the asteroids seems to be inside Jupiter’s orbit. 2) Click on and view the orbits of some of the main belt asteroids. Do the main belt asteroids mostly have circular or highly eccentric orbits? Give eccentricity value to support your answer. It is mostly circular. Eccentric - 0.116996 You may need to adjust your viewpoint by clicking on the screen and dragging to change your angle of view for the next question. 3) Compared to the planets, are the main belt asteroids mostly in the plane of the ecliptic? Explain. A lot of the asteroids are either below or above the ecliptic; they aren’t exactly on it. Return to a top down view of the solar system. Play time forward and watch the asteroids that are out by Jupiter’s orbit. These asteroids are called the Trojans. 4) It may help to click on one of the asteroids near Jupiter’s orbit and watch it for one full orbit of Jupiter. How does the asteroid’s orbit compare to Jupiter’s? You should change the viewpoint to view the tilt of the asteroids orbit as well as the comparing the top down view. The orbit of these asteroids are a lot slower than Jupiter’s orbit. It is also slightly bigger.

5) Let’s use the scientific process to determine whether main belt asteroids often collide with one another. Begin by writing down your hypothesis. (Do you think there are a lot of collisions and why do you think that.) I don’t think that the asteroids collide often. They all seem to stay in their own orbit, so something out of the ordinary will have to happen for them to collide. 6) Next, we will use a calculation to test youMars and Jupiter. r hypothesis. Recall that the main asteroid belt is located between So, the first step of the calculation is to determine the area of the asteroid belt by subtracting the area of Mars’ orbit from Jupiters’ orbit. This will require finding the area of a circle. A= (pi)*r 2 Show your work below. Give your final answer in kilometers squared (km 2 ) using the conversion that 1 AU = 1.5x10 8 km. 84.95= (pi)*5.2 2 7.25= (pi)*1.52 2 77.7 AU^2 1.74825e+18 7) Now that you know the area of the asteroid belt, let’s determine how many asteroids could fit in that space by dividing the area of the asteroid belt by the area of one asteroid. Assume that the typical asteroid has a radius of 0.5 km. Show your work below. .79 = (pi)0.5 2 1.75/.79 2.21e18 8) There are approximately 750,000 asteroids with a diameter of 1 km (radius of 0.5 km) in the main asteroid belt. Using your calculation above, discuss whether or not this information supports your hypothesis. This information does support my hypothesis because it is unlikely that the asteroids will collide Comets - read instructions to set up Starry Night to answer these questions 9) What is the perihelion date of comet 1P/Halley? Wednesday, August 17, 1910 10) What is the perihelion distance of this comet? How does this compare to Earth’s distance from the Sun? 0.59 AU

11) At what point in 1P/Halley orbit did the tail of the comet appear largest? It appears largest when it is closest to the sun 12) In what direction does the comet tail point? Does it change direction as the comet orbits the Sun? The tail points down close to Venus’s orbit , away from the sun. 13) What do you notice about the direction of 1P/Halley orbit compared to that of the planets from the top down view of the solar system? Explain It goes down then clockwise while the other planets go counterclockwise 14) The tail of Halley’s Comet came close enough to Earth that it hit the Earth’s atmosphere (or the other way around). When did Earth pass through the tail (hint: find the date in 1910). May 19, 1910 15) When does the comet travel fastest? Give terminology and dates It travels fastest on August 17, when it is closest to the sun. 16) When does the comet travel slowest? Give terminology and dates It travels the slowest when it is away from the sun june 21, 1953 17) What physical law describes when the comet will move faster or slower? Kepler's second law. It describes the way an object's speed varies along its orbit. 18) After answering the above questions, change the time step to 1-3 months. When are the next two appearances of Halley’s comet? (Be careful not to miss the perihelion of the comet.Adjust the time step back to 1 day as the comet gets closer to perihelion). from the first question in comets above. Give date from question 9 Date 1: 1910 Date 2: 1986 Date 3: 2061 19) What is the average gap in time between the three occurrences of Halley’s comet that you saw today? The average gap is about 70 years

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20) Do you think you will see Halley’s comet in your lifetime? Yes. 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko -return to the instructions to set up Starry night for these questions The image below shows the comet up-close from a distance of 238 kilometers (Image Credit: 2014 ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team). 21) Describe the comet nucleus, in your own words. Consider its shape, relative bright and dark areas, and surface features. It kinda looks like a boot, and it is relatively light at the top and really dark at the bottom 22) Philae landed on the comet surface on November 12, 2014 and sent an “I’m OK!” message to Rosetta to be relayed to Earth. How long did it take Earth to receive Rosetta’s signal if the signal traveled at the speed of light which is 3 x 10 5 km/s. You must first determine the distance between Earth and the comet. Use the measurement tool to find the distance in AU and use 1AU = 1.5x10 8 km. Give your answer in minutes. It took approximately 25 years

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