The importance of analyzing the nucleus of a comet.

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Chapter 13, Problem 25CQ

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The importance of analyzing the nucleus of a comet.

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Which of the following is least reasonable regarding comets? Group of answer choices Short-period comets originate in the Kuiper belt and take less than than about 200 years to orbit the Sun. Long-period comets originate in the Oort cloud and can take millions of years to orbit around the Sun, in randomly oriented orbital planes. The ion tail of a comet tends to produce a blue glow, as the ions inside it absorb sunlight and re-emit the absorbed energy with a characteristic color (somewhat like the gas atoms in a neon light or in an Aurora). An ion tail is typically narrow and straight and always trails the comet, like long hair in the wind. The dust tail of a comet often looks curved and its whitish color is just reflected sunlight.

1. Suppose you have an Oort cloud comet on an orbit with pericenter distance 10,000 AU, and apocenter distance 20,000 AU. a. What are the semi-major axis and eccentricity of the orbit? b. What are the specific energy (energy per unit mass), and specific angular momentum (angular momentum per unit mass) of the comet? c. How fast is the comet moving at apocenter (relative to the Sun)?

When far from the Sun, a comet consists only of its a. nucleus b. dust tail c. gas tail d. coma