Elon Musk reveals how comets die a long-standing mystery is how icy objects from the Solar System's
periphery disintegrate comets from the deep freezer of the solar system rarely survive
their first encounter with the sun one scientists believes he knows why solar warmth causes some of
the cosmic snowballs to spin so fast that they break apart so how does the comet die Elon Musk
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and let's begin according to musk comets are also referred to as dirty snowballs in space they are
small icy objects that orbit the Sun and emit dust or gas into space a comet's period is the
amount of time it takes to complete its orbit the periods of comets range from a few years to
millions of years they are composed of dust ice carbon dioxide ammonia and methane among other
things dust particles coated with water ice and other molecules form the foundation of a comet
these dust particles merge to form icy rocks that are held together by gravity how do comets form
the comet contains stuff that dates back to the time the solar system first came into existence
approximately 4.6 billion years ago in the opinion of some astronomers comets first appeared comets
are composed of an ice core known as the nucleus and a sizable cloud of gas and dust known as the
coma did you know that comets grow two tails when they approach the sun these two tails are
a curved to dust tail and a straight gas tail the solar wind propels gas out of the comet's coma and
into a straight line away from the Sun forming a straight gas tail musk explained the heat from
the Sun causes the dust in the coma to vaporize rather than being impacted by magnetic fields as
a result a curl tail develops and follows the comet's orbit how were comets named comets are
frequently given their discoverer's name for instance Edmund Haley is the name of the Comet
Haley he came to the conclusion that comet seen in 1531 1607 and 1682 all share the same orbits and
were therefore one Comet Edmund Haley correctly anticipated the comet's return in 1758 according
to his calculations but he did not live to see the Halley's Comet there have been instances
where multiple people have simultaneously reported a new comment in this instance Comet names like
Comet Tail Bop or Comet Shoemaker Levy are mixed what size does the comment have a comet's nucleus
typically measures one to ten kilometers or 0.626 miles in diameter there may be tens of millions of
kilometers in the tail from where do comets come long period comets and short period comments are
thought to be the two sources of comets short period comets complete their orbits of the Sun
in fewer than 200 years but long period comets need more than 200 years to do so the Kuiper belt
is where they come from the Yon ort comets musk stated are thought to exist in a massive Cloud
near the Solar System's Edge far beyond Pluto's orbit according to a Danish astronomer the ort
cloud is the name for this according to some estimates it may include a trillion comments and
make up a sizable portion of the Solar System's Mass the individual comet is so little and so far
away though that we lack direct proof of the Oort Cloud's existence short period comets are thought
to have their origins in the Kuiper belt it is an area Beyond Neptune that is formed like a disc
only a few of the small cold planetary planets in this Belt have have been photographed comets with
long periods according to musk such as Comet hail Bop and comets hayakutake orbit the Sun for more
than 200 years these comet's orbital paths are erratic in terms of Direction and playing the
Oort cloud is thought to be the place where long period comets are thought to have their beginnings
what happens when a comet approaches the sun closely according to musk in the Kuiper belt
region and Oort cloud comets are merely tiny bits of ice and dust in general they are undetectable
unless for when they are near the sun when a comet approaches the sun it heats up and the ice starts
to sublimate going straight from a solid to a gas without going through a liquid stage some
of the Dust is Left Behind when ice sublimates it creates a thick protective coating on the
nucleus the surface as slows melting the gas and dust from the coma's cloud so we learned that
as a comet gets closer to the Sun its tails grow longer and more impressive when a comet approaches
the sun it becomes hotter and more material is released as a result the tail appears according
to scientists when a comet approaches a sun it loses between 0.1 and 1 percent of its mass each
time it orbits the Sun so how do comets die astronomers have successfully seen a comet
partially disintegrated its closest approach to the Sun for the first time the international team
made the observation using a combination of ground and space-based telescopes under the
direction of Man 2 Hui at Macau University of Science and Technology the team described
the occurrences the object's lingering death and claims that its analysis reveals some incredibly
peculiar characteristics in the comet's color and rotation musk explained numerous comets and
asteroids reside in the Solar System's innermost regions and reach their perihelia or point of
closest approach to the sun within Mercury's orbit the majority of astronomers believe that
these objects came from the asteroid belt or were short period comets like Hayley's Comet
before being pulled in the direction of the Sun by the gravitational pull of the Big Planets they
aren't projected to endure longer than 10 million years before crashing into a planet or the sun
because their new orbits constantly cross paths with those of the terrestrial planets however
astronomers presently know about much fewer of these objects than current models would suggest
the difficulty in observing these comets according to musk which only become bright enough to examine
as they approach their perihelia contributes to this Rarity the high temperature stress that the
objects undergo as they get closer to the Sun is expected to cause them to disintegrate high
quality observations of this fragmentation have not yet been produced though hui's team examined
the Comet 323p or Soho whose perihelion is only about 8.4 solar radii to provide new light on the
procedure the precise location of this comet's perihilion is rather unclear because it has
never been seen from Earth before the astronomers utilize Japan's Subaru telescope located in Hawaii
musk stated to address this issue because of its enormous field of view which allowed them to
conduct their search across a significant portion of the sky the team was able to explore 323p Soho
using a mix of higher resolution ground and space space observatories including the Hubble Space
Telescope once they had recognized it in Subaru's photos these observations showed that 323p Soho
formed a long thin tale of dust after making its closest approach to the sun which is typical of a
comment that is disintegrating according to hui's team predictions the significant thermal stress
at 323p SoHo underwent may have contributed to this fracturing however they also noted that
the comet's nucleus was rotating exceptionally quickly the Solar System's fastest known Comet
three two three p Soho with a rotating period of just over 30 minutes and according to the
team this quick rotation probably hastened its destruction researchers estimated after 323p
Soho passed its perihelion it lost a total of 0.1 to 10 percent of its total mass they also spotted
some incredibly strange colors in the comet's tail of nucleus scientists had never seen the
colors alter over time in such novel ways Huey and colleagues have calculated the object's orbiting
gravitational pull and they have determined that there was a 99.7 percent possibility that it will
collide with the sun in the next 2000 years in the future the team is hoping to examine additional
near-sun comets using the same methodology if the same peculiar characteristics show up
in these objects they may shed new light on the disintegration process and offer fresh insights
into why the Solar System's innermost regions are so sparsely populated musk finally explained and
with that being said that ends today's episode we really hope you enjoyed our latest video if you
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