Comets are tailed stars. “tailed stars What is a planet

Aseev Egor

This interstellar eternal wanderer.

It will just appear in the night sky.

And then flies away for a long time,

Waving his tail at us goodbye.

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Municipal budget educational institution"Bykovskaya basic secondary school of the Yakovlevsky district of the Belgorod region"

Research paper on the topic

“Does a “star” have a tail and why are comets called celestial chameleons?”

Aseev Egor

3rd grade student

Supervisor:

Peremyshleva T.I.

primary teacher

Classes

Bykovka 2012 -2013 academic year

1. Introduction

This interstellar

Eternal wanderer

In the night sky

Just introducing myself

And flies away

For a long time afterwards,

Saying goodbye to us, tail twinkling.

Slide 2

Man has always been attracted to the sky with twinkling stars and the bottomless depth of the Universe. There are many, many stars in our Galaxy called the Milky Way. Some are very bright, while others are barely noticeable. The stars serve everyone. For some they are lighthouses, for others they are decorations of the sky, and for scientists they are a mystery that needs to be solved.

Object of studyspace appeared, and the subject of research was comets.

Purpose of the study: deepen ideas about solar system, celestial bodies included in its composition.

Job objectives:

Study popular scientific literature on this issue;

Collect brief informationabout the history of the appearance of comets;

Present in the study the qualitative characteristics of the structure of the comet;

Draw an analogy between the appearance of comets and terrible events on the planet;

Consider and imagine the brightest comets of the Solar System.

Slide 3

Hypothesis:

• Comets are celestial wanderers that are part of the solar system.
• Are people's fears with the appearance of comets in the sky justified?
• Is there a danger of comets destroying the Earth from space?

Slide 4

Research methods: analysis of additional literature, work with Internet resources.

Presentation of results: multimedia presentation.

Research Questions:

1. What does a comet look like? Where does the tail come from?
2. What gases does a comet's tail consist of?
3. Superstitions associated with the appearance of comets.
4. Where do comets come from?
5. Modern comet research.
6. Can a comet explode?
7. What will happen if the Earth collides with the nucleus of a comet?

Comets are called “tailed stars,” but could they have a tail like a peacock? And do they change color like chameleons?

Slide 5

TERRIBLY INTERESTING

ALL THAT IS UNKNOWN!

TERRIBLY UNKNOWN

EVERYTHING THAT IS INTERESTING!

Slide 6

2. Main part

2.1 A comet is a guest from the distant worlds of the Universe. Translated from Greek (cometes) means long-haired, tailed. Together with asteroids and meteoroids, they are classified as small bodies of the Solar System. Slide 7

Comets are called celestial chameleons. And why? Because the same comet changes its appearance depending on its distance from the Sun. Far from the Sun, the comet is visible as a small, light, hazy circle, brighter in the middle and blurry at the edges. When a comet approaches the Sun, the hazy speck it appears to be stretches towards the Sun, and its brightness becomes greater and greater. Slide 8

2. 2 Where does a comet's tail come from?

To do this, you need to study the structure of the comet. Comets are called a ball of dirty snow. The core is a block of dirty ice mixed with dust and rock fragments. The solid part of the comet is surrounded by a cloudluminous gases - the so-called coma.

Comets are heading towards the Sun. Streams sun rays (sunny wind) knock out gas particles from the coma and throw them back, pulling them into a long smoky tail that drags behind her into space.The comet's tail is always directed away from the Sun, as if the Sun stubbornly pushes the comet's tail away from itself. Sometimes it is completely straight, and sometimes it is curved. Comet tails sometimes extend for tens and hundreds of millions of kilometers.

Slide 9, 10

2.3 How many tails can a comet have?

Bright comets usually have two main tails. The first of them is straight, bluish, elongated away from the Sun. It consists of gas blown away by the solar wind.

But there is also a yellow-white tail - made of dust, trailing behind the comet along its orbit.

Some comets have more than two tails. Comet de Chaizeau had seven tailsspread out like a peacock's tail.

2.4 What gases make up the tail of comets?

This is carbon monoxide, or carbon monoxide, which is formed in the room if we close the stove before the fuel burns out. The closer the comet's nucleus is to the Sun, the more it heats up and the more gases come out of it.

As the comet moves away from the Sun, it freezes again. Some comets appear near the Sun every few years. For others, the orbit is so elongated that their appearance occurs only after several thousand and even millions of years.

Slide 11

2.5 Where do comets come from?

It was possible to solve the question of where comets come from and how they move in space only on the basis of the law of universal gravitation. First, Newton, and then his contemporary, the English astronomer Edmund Halley (1656-1742) calculated the orbits of several comets that had appeared earlier, and found that the orbits of comets observed in 1531, 1607 and 1682 were very similar. He suggested that it was the same comet, periodically returning to the Sun, and for the first time predicted its next appearance. Since the time of Newton and Halley, the orbits of more than 700 comets have been calculated. This led to evidence that all celestial bodies are attracted to each other and revolve around the Sun.

And the Dutch scientist Jan Oort calculated and substantiated the conclusion more than fifty years ago: the Solar system is surrounded by a giant cloud of comets that extend at a distance of 20,000 to 200,000 astronomical units (1 AU - about 150 million kilometers).This is where comets spend most of their lives. Only sometimes, under the influence of disturbances from other cosmic bodies, can they change their orbit and approach the Sun. Then we also see them from Earth.

Slide 12

2. 6 Superstitions associated with comets

Because of their unusual appearance (the presence of a tail that can extend over several constellations), comets have attracted the attention of people, even those far from astronomy, since ancient times. The unexpected appearance of “tailed luminaries” caused fear and even panic in people. The “tailed star” approaching the Earth seemed to foreshadow the most terrible events: epidemics, famine, wars, natural disasters, palace coups, murders of nobles and rulers. Some of these events were accompanied by the appearance of bright comets, but most often it was a simple coincidence. But palace astronomers-astrologers and the church for a very long time predicted the future, based on celestial phenomena. Under the influence of such superstitious fears, one contemporary sketched in an old book a comet and what he saw in it out of fear. He imagined dozens of severed heads with bloody beards, daggers and sabers in the comet.

slide 14

The most mysterious comet for many centuries has been Halley's Comet. Traditionally, comets have been considered harbingers of very significant changes on Earth. There are significant events associated with the appearance of Halley's Comet. According to Sacred Tradition, the baby Christ was born, and this coincided with the appearance of Halley’s comet in the sky, and it became a kind of happy harbinger for humanity.

The appearance of Halley's comet is associated with bloody wars and destructive earthquakes, floods and epidemics that claim thousands of lives. The last time the comet approached Earth was in 1986, and its visit was marked by one of the strongest environmental disasters on Earth - the accident at the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl.

Is this a simple coincidence or do comets actually influence earthly events is still a mystery. And there is no consensus on this issue, since more severe events took place on Earth without the presence of comets in the sky.

Slide 15

2.7 Study of Halley's Comet

Interest in comets continues to this day.Comets have always captured people's imagination. Living on the outskirts of the Universe, they, as if in a refrigerator, retained their pristine state. One of the brightest and longest-period comets is Halley's Comet.This comet has inspired fear and horror in people since ancient times. People were afraid that the comet might collide with the Earth. At the beginning of the 20th century (May 1910), the Earth actually passed through the tail of Halley's comet, but no changes occurred to the planet.That is why in March 1986, Soviet automatic stations “Vega” set off to Halley’s comet, which approaches the Earth once every 76 years. They were the first to transmit an image of the comet's nucleus. Spacecraft for the first time we had to “see” the comet’s nucleus, elusive to ground-based telescopes. Vega 1's encounter with the comet occurred on March 6, and Vega 2's encounter on March 9, 1986. They passed at a distance of 8900 and 8000 kilometers from its core.

Slide 16

2.8 Bright comets of the 20th and 21st centuries

Every year 15-20 comets are observed, most of which are visible only through a telescope. Some of them turn out to be new, previously unknown. This happened, for example, recently, when in 1996 and 1997. two very bright comets appeared, visible even to the naked eye, although such comets usually appear once every 10-15 years. By tradition, they are named after the names of those who discovered them. These are the Japanese astronomy enthusiast Hyakutaki and two Americans - Hale and Bopp.

Slide 17

2013: Year of comets

Russian and Belarusian astronomers have discovered a new comet. By the end of summer 2013, the comet will be visible using small telescopes and binoculars, and in October it will pass by Mars. As it approaches the Sun, the so-called “tail” of the comet will begin to form - a trail of dust and gas. By the end of November it will be visible to the naked eye just after dark. The light of this comet will outshine the moon.

Slide 18

2. 9 Can a comet explode?

Comets do not explode on their own. However, sometimes they fall apart. For example, one comet, the appearance of which was observed several times, in 1846 broke up into two. In the end, each of them crumbled into small fragments, forming a meteor shower that can be regularly observed in the last days of November. Thus, sooner or later, each comet dies, collapsing into small parts, which then scatter along its orbit in the form of meteoric dust.

Slide 19

3. Can a comet fall on a planet?

In 1994, the whole world witnessed one extraordinary event that humanity had not yet been able to observe - the collision of fragments of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with Jupiter. This comet quietly revolved around the Sun for many millions, and maybe billions of years, regularly arriving at it from distant space. However, she unexpectedly fell into the powerful gravitational field of Jupiter. The comet was forced to revolve around itself in a very unstable orbit. In 1972, the comet came within 20 thousand km and lost its magnificent trail. The core broke up into several fragments. The end was approaching. And this happened on July 17, 1994. Fragments began to fall one by one onto the surface of the planet. Explosions on Jupiter were observed from space by the Hubble telescope and astronomers from Hawaii. The flames from the explosions rose so high that they could be seen even through a small school telescope.

Slide 20

3.1 Why did dinosaurs become extinct?

About 65 million years ago, all dinosaurs suddenly went extinct. Along with them, pterosaurs and marine reptiles became extinct. Scientists do not know exactly why this happened. But one thing is clear: the climate has changed very dramatically. During the era of dinosaurs, the climate was warm.

According to one hypothesis, dinosaurs became extinct as a result of the fall of a large comet or asteroid.

Slide 21

3.2 What will happen if the Earth collides with the nucleus of a comet?

When the Earth passed through cometary tails, no effects, even the most insignificant, were noticed. Only comet nuclei can pose a danger to the Earth. Scientists say that the breakup of a comet into pieces is a rare event, the capture of a comet by Jupiter is an even rarer event, and the collision of a large comet with a planet is an extraordinary cosmic event.

Recently, in an American laboratory, on one of the most powerful Intel Teraflop computers with a performance of 1 trillion operations per second, a model of the fall of a comet with a radius of 1 kilometer to the Earth was calculated. The calculations took 48 hours. They showed that such a cataclysm would be fatal for humanity: hundreds of tons of dust would rise into the air, blocking access to sunlight and heat, when it fell into the ocean, a giant tsunami would be formed, destructive earthquakes would occur... According to one hypothesis, dinosaurs became extinct as a result of the fall of a great comet or asteroid. In the state of Arizona (USA) there is a crater with a diameter of 1219 meters, formed after the fall of a meteorite 60 meters in diameter. The explosion was equivalent to the explosion of 15 million tons of trinitrotoluene. Supposed to be famous Tunguska meteorite 1908 had a diameter of about 100 meters. Therefore, scientists are now working to create a system for early detection, destruction or deflection of large cosmic bodies flying close to our planet.

Slide 22

Cosmic bodies are constantly falling onto our planet. Some of them are the size of a grain of sand, others can weigh several hundred kilograms and even tons.To prove this, I will give an example of the latest event in the Urals.February, 15A very strong explosion of a cosmic body occurred over the Urals.

According to the latest data, the number of victims of falling meteorite fragments is only in Chelyabinsk region, amounted to about 1200 people. The majority of people were injured by glass fragments, which were knocked out by a sound wave after the meteorite explosion.

Slide 23

4. Conclusion

Despite their careful study, comets still conceal many mysteries.Some of these beautiful “tailed stars” that shine from time to time in the evening sky can pose a real danger to our planet. But progress in this area does not stand still, and, most likely, our generation will already witness a landing on a cometary nucleus. Comets are not yet of practical interest, but studying them will help to understand the fundamentals and causes of other events. The comet is a space wanderer, it passes through very remote areas inaccessible to research, and perhaps it “knows” what is happening in interstellar space.

Since ancient times, people have watched the starry sky with admiration and surprise, trying to understand its secrets. Throughout human history, astronomers, step by step, bit by bit, collected information about space, including very interesting space objects– comets, which our article is about today.

What is a comet

The word “comet” itself is of ancient Greek origin, and our language translates as “with long hair.” Of course, this name is not accidental, because a mandatory attribute of any decent comet is the presence of a long tail, which the poetic ancient Greeks thought of as “hair.”

So, a comet is a small celestial object moving around the Sun in a highly elongated orbit, having a “head” and a “tail”. At first, astronomers considered comets to be travelers from outside ours who were “passing through” here, but later they found out that comets never leave the solar system, that is, they are not “tourists” here, but “permanent residents.”

And comets are often confused with other flying celestial objects: asteroids and meteorites, we will try to clarify at this moment and formulate the difference between them.

How are asteroids different from comets?

In general, comets and asteroids have many common features: they revolve around the Sun, have unusual orbits, and comets and asteroids can fly, including close to the Earth, as well as other planets in the Solar System. But what is their difference? In fact, a comet differs from an asteroid in many ways:

• By composition: asteroids consist of rocky material and, comets are formed of ice, dust, rocks and organic compounds. Due to the presence of ice in its composition, it is dangerous for comets to fly close to the Sun; the ice begins to melt, and comets lose a significant part of their volume. Asteroids can fly close to the Sun without any consequences.
• By the presence of a tail: comets have tails, asteroids, as a rule, do not. Although not so long ago, astronomers noticed asteroids (for example, an asteroid code-named P/2010 A2) that also had tails, but the nature of the formation of tails in asteroids is different than in comets. An asteroid's tail is formed due to its impact with other asteroids, which causes a large emission of dust and gas from its surface, creating the “tail effect.” But in general, an asteroid’s tail is the exception rather than the rule. We will talk about the nature of the comet's tail below.
• By orbit: asteroids have shorter and more circular orbits, while comets have wider and longer orbits.

What is the difference between a meteorite and a comet?

The meteorite is also very similar to a comet, but there are many differences between them:

• Size: meteorites are several times smaller than comets; if a comet can have a diameter of several kilometers, then meteorites can boast only a few meters.
• Meteorites, like most asteroids, do not have a tail, this decoration of all comets. In general, the shape of a meteorite is different from that of a comet.
• The composition of a comet and a meteorite is also different, as we wrote above, a comet consists of ice, dust, rocks and organic compounds, while a meteorite is created from any solid(rock, metal, ore).
• And the main difference is in the essence of a meteorite, because in essence it is an object that represents the process of the fall of a celestial body, while a comet is a full-fledged “inhabitant of outer space”, unlike a meteorite, it does not fall anywhere (although there are exceptions), but simply flies around within the solar system.

Comets and history

In ancient times, comets were the cause of numerous superstitions, and even miracles. Often their appearance in the night sky was associated, either with omens of various misfortunes, or, on the contrary, with great beneficial events. Thus, the famous “Star of Bethlehem”, described in the Bible, which, according to the Gospel of Matthew, the wise men saw in the starry sky and realized that the “King of the Jews” was born, was most likely just a comet.

Prominent scientists of antiquity also wrote about comets in their works, in particular, Aristotle believed that comets are luminous gas, and the Roman philosopher Seneca suggested that comets are celestial bodies that move in their orbits.

The famous Halley's comet made a lot of noise in history, which was seen more than once in the starry sky and its appearance was always associated with various historical events. For example, it is believed that the arrival of Halley's comet in 1066 brought with it the death of the English king Harold II and the victory of William the Conqueror - one of the turning points in the history of the European Middle Ages.

The appearance of Halley's Comet in 1066, a fragment of the Bayeux Tapestry glorifying the victory of William the Conqueror.

What are comets made of?

Today, science has made significant progress in the study of these interesting celestial objects, including determining their composition. So, comets consist of a solid core, which in turn consists of frozen water and cosmic dust. The comet itself, as we wrote above, consists of ice, dust, rock and organic compounds.

How a comet's tail is formed

Where does a comet's tail come from, in general, what causes the formation of comet tails? The characteristic fiery tail of a comet is an emission of gas and dust occurring under the influence of solar energy. As a comet flies closer to the Sun, its surface heats up, leading to this ejection, which creates the comet's tail. Moreover, if asteroids have tails only when they collide with something, a comet will have tails simply when it flies a little closer to the Sun due to the structural features of the comet itself. It is also interesting that the comet's tail is always directed away from the Sun.

Age of comets

Nothing lasts forever under the Moon, even stars have their age, and comets even more so. Moreover, comets have a peculiar life cycle; at first they are young and then grow old. Aging in comets is manifested in the fact that while flying around the Sun, they gradually lose their volume, which is from the comet under the influence of solar energy (the tail of the comet is precisely the product of this evaporation).

Comet crash

A comet falling on any planet (including our Earth) is an unlikely event, but keyword here it is still “probable”, that is, as a result of a certain combination of circumstances, a comet may fall (or rather even crash) into one or another planet. As you probably guessed, this does not bode well for the planet, since as a result of the fall of the comet, a huge explosion will follow, comparable in power to the explosions of hundreds of thousands of atomic bombs.

• There is also a mention of a comet as a bad omen in our history, namely the Tale of Bygone Years, which astronomers at that time considered to be “moving tailed stars.”
• Some scientists believe that the famous Comet Halley, which appears in our starry sky every 75 years, could well be the no less famous “Star of Bethlehem” from the Bible.

Comets, video

And finally interesting documentary, about the most legendary comets living in our solar system.

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