The Cosmic Perspective (9th Edition)
9th Edition
ISBN: 9780134874364
Author: Jeffrey O. Bennett, Megan O. Donahue, Nicholas Schneider, Mark Voit
Publisher: PEARSON
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Chapter 12, Problem 50EAP
To determine
To Calculate: The total volume of the Oort cloud, space occupied by each comet there and comet’s typical spacing.
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It is believed that there are 1.6*10^12 comets in the spherical Oort Cloud,which has radius of 46000 AU.Calculate the average volume that each comet has to itself.Then take cube root of average volume per comet to find their typical spacing in AU.
A typical comet contains some 1013 kg of water ice. How many comets would have to strike Earth in order to account for the roughly 2×1021 kg of water presently found on our planet? (Hint: simple division) If this amount of water accumulated over a period of 500 million years, how frequently must Earth have been hit by comets during that time? (Hint: Calculate, on the average, how many comets hit the Earth per year during that time.)
Tutorial
You observe a comet 0.32 AU from Earth with a tail that is 1.7 degrees long. How long is the tail in AU?
How long is the tail in kilometers?
How many times could the U.S. fit along the length of the tail? (The width of the U.S. is 4,313 km.)
Part 1 of 3
You observe a comet 0.32 AU from Earth with a tail that is 1.7 degrees long. How long is the tail in AU?
We use the small angle formula to calculate the length of the tail in AU.
arc seconds d
Ꮎ
2.06 x 105
D
Solving for the linear distance gives:
dAU = DAU
dAU =
=
AU
arc seconds
2.06 x 105
Chapter 12 Solutions
The Cosmic Perspective (9th Edition)
Ch. 12 - Prob. 1VSCCh. 12 - Use the following questions to check your...Ch. 12 - Use the following questions to check your...Ch. 12 - Prob. 4VSCCh. 12 - Use the following questions to check your...Ch. 12 - 1. Briefly define asteroid. comet, dwarf planet,...Ch. 12 - Briefly describe asteroid sizes, shapes, masses,...Ch. 12 - 3. Distinguish between primitive meteorites and...Ch. 12 - 4. What do meteorites and spacecraft observations...Ch. 12 - Prob. 5EAP
Ch. 12 - Prob. 6EAPCh. 12 - Prob. 7EAPCh. 12 - How do we know the Kuiper belt and Oort cloud...Ch. 12 - Prob. 9EAPCh. 12 - Prob. 10EAPCh. 12 - Prob. 11EAPCh. 12 - Briefly describe the evidence suggesting that an...Ch. 12 - Prob. 13EAPCh. 12 - Prob. 14EAPCh. 12 - Prob. 15EAPCh. 12 - Prob. 16EAPCh. 12 - Prob. 17EAPCh. 12 - Prob. 18EAPCh. 12 - Prob. 19EAPCh. 12 - Prob. 20EAPCh. 12 - Prob. 21EAPCh. 12 - Prob. 22EAPCh. 12 - Prob. 23EAPCh. 12 - Prob. 24EAPCh. 12 - Choose the best answer to each of the following....Ch. 12 - Choose the best answer to each of the following....Ch. 12 - Choose the best answer to each of the following....Ch. 12 - Choose the best answer to each of the following....Ch. 12 - Choose the best answer to each of the following....Ch. 12 - Choose the best answer to each of the following....Ch. 12 - Choose the best answer to each of the following....Ch. 12 - Choose the best answer to each of the following....Ch. 12 - Choose the best answer to each of the following....Ch. 12 - Choose the best answer to each of the following....Ch. 12 - The Role of Jupiter. Suppose that Jupiter had...Ch. 12 - Prob. 41EAPCh. 12 - Prob. 42EAPCh. 12 - Comet Tails. Describe in your own words why comets...Ch. 12 - Prob. 44EAPCh. 12 - Adding Up Asteroids. It’s estimated that there are...Ch. 12 - Impact Energies. A relatively small impact crater...Ch. 12 - The “Near Miss” of Toutatis. The 5-kilometer...Ch. 12 - Prob. 50EAPCh. 12 - Comet Temperatures. Find the “no greenhouse”...Ch. 12 - Comet Dust Accumulation. A few hundred tons of...
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- suppose that the oort comet cloud contains 10^12 comets, with an average comet diameter of 10km. Calculate the mass of a comet 10km in diameter, assuiming that it is composed mostly of water ice (density of 1g/cm^3). Next calculate the total mass of the comet cloud. finally, compare this mass with that of the Earth and Jupiter.arrow_forwardIf you saw Comet Halley when the comet was 0.8 AU from Earth and you observed a visible tail 4 degrees long, how long was the tail in kilometers? (Hint: Use the small-angle formula.) (Note: 1 AU = 1.5 ✕ 109 km.) Suppose that the tail was not perpendicular to your line of sight. Is your first answer too large or too small?arrow_forwardConsider an asteroid that orbits in a relatively circular orbit with a semimajor axis a = 2 au from the Sun. A typical asteroid has an albedo, or reflectivity, A ~ 0.3. At our closest approach to the asteroid, we make a measurement of the flux coming from the asteroid to be F = 3 × 10-15 w m-2. What is the radius of the asteroid in km? Include a labelled diagram along with your calculations.arrow_forward
- A typical comet contains some 1013 kg of water ice. How many comets would have to strike Earth in order to account for the roughly 2×1021 kg of water presently found on our planet? If this amount of water accumulated over a period of 500 million years, how frequently must Earth have been hit by comets during that time?arrow_forwardThe mass of an average comet's nucleus is about 1.0 x 1014 kg. If the Oort cloud contains 2.0 x 1011 comet nuclei, what is the mass of the cloud in units of Earth masses? (Note: Earth's mass is 5.97 x 1024 kg.) M. Compare that with Saturn's mass. (Note: Saturn's mass in units of Earth's mass is 95.2 Ma) mass of the Oort cloud mass of Saturn Need Help? Read Itarrow_forwardYou observe a comet 0.46 AU from Earth with a tail that is 1.7 degrees long. How long is the tail in AU? How long is the tail in kilometers? How many times could the U.S. fit along the length of the tail? (The width of the U.S. is 4,313 km.)arrow_forward
- If you saw Comet Halley when the comet was 0.3 AU from Earth and you observed a visible tail 5 degrees long, how long was the tail in kilometers? (Hint: Use the small-angle formula.) (Note: 1 AU = 1.5 ✕ 109 km.)arrow_forwardIf you saw Comet Halley when the comet was 0.8 AU from Earth and you observed a visible tail 4 degrees long, how long was the tail in kilometers? (Hint: Use the small-angle formula.) (Note: 1 AU = 1.5 x 10° km.) X kmarrow_forwardA comet’s perihelion distance is 1 AU, and its aphelion distance is 15 AU. In the following, we make a very crude calculation of the average rate of shrinkage of the comet.(a) Calculate the comet’s orbital period.(b) Estimate how many meters of ice the comet will lose each time it orbits the Sun. (Hint: To simplify the calculations, you may assume that ice sublimates off the comet’s surface during one tenth of its orbital period, that the average cometary distance over that period is 1.5 AU and the density of the cometary ice is 600 kg m−3.)arrow_forward
- It is believed that there are a 1.2 × 1012 comets in the Oort Cloud, which has a radius of 74000.0 AU. What is the total volume of the Oort Cloud in cubic AU?arrow_forwardConsider the differentiated meteorites. We think the irons are from the cores, the stony-irons are from the interfaces between mantles and cores, and the stones are from the mantles of their differentiated parent bodies. If these parent bodies were like Earth, what fraction of the meteorites would you expect to consist of irons, stony-irons, and stones? Is this consistent with the observed numbers of each? (Hint: You will need to look up what percent of the volume of Earth is taken up by its core, mantle, and crust.)arrow_forwardWe believe that chains of comet fragments like Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9’s have collided not only with the jovian planets, but occasionally with their moons. What sort of features would you look for on the outer planet moons to find evidence of such collisions? (As an extra bonus, can you find any images of such features on a moon like Callisto? You can use an online site of planetary images, such as the Planetary Photojournal, at photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov.)arrow_forward
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