Lyceum B - Astronomy - Week 37 - Comets
- Aug 21, 2022
- 2 min read
Dirty Snowballs: How a Comet’s Size Affects How Fast It Melts
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Experiment - how the Sun’s gravitational pull affects the speed an Object travels in different sections of its orbit
Need: foam board, a spoon, marble
We are going to make a track in which our marble (“comet”) will travel around the Sun
Using the handle of the spoon, gouge an elliptical track for the marble (“comet”) to travel
Draw a large dot that will represent the Sun inside the track at one end of the elliptical oval.
Tilt the foam board slightly toward the end with the Sun on it.
Start the marble traveling along the elliptical track from the top of the oval toward the Sun at the bottom.
Notice that the marble does not travel the same speed around the oval, but goes faster as it approaches the Sun and slower as it travels away.
The gives you the same sense of what happens to a comet as it nears the Sun in its orbit.
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Demonstration - A Comet’s Tail Blowing in the Solar Wind
Need: hair dryer, tissue paper, styrofoam ball, wooden skewer
Cut tissue paper for the comet tail - 15 strips measuring 1/4 inch x 8 inches
Lay down a strip of adhesive tape and place all of the tissue paper strips along that strip of tape.
Tape the strip of tissue paper around the equator of the styrofoam ball. This will be our “comet”.
Poke the skewer into the styrofoam ball at right angle to the tail
Turn on the hair dryer to replicate the effect of the “solar wind” and point it at the “comet”
Have someone else hold the “comet” by its skewer handle and walk around you as you rotate to always keep the “solar wind” pointing at the comet and see if the strips of the “comet’s tail” ever change direction. Have the comet change directions to move toward the sun and away from the Sun and see what happens to the “tail” as the “solar winds” blow.
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Experiment - Halley’s Comet is layered - ice core coated with some of the darkest material in the Solar System.
Need: bowl of warm water, a straw, chocolate covered vanilla ice cream bar
Unwrap the ice cream bar and set aside for 15 min
Take bowl of warm water and place one end of the straw in it for 5 min to warm it up
Piece the ice cream with the warm straw, plunge it in deep, twist it and pull it back out
Blow through the open end of the straw to dislodge our sample core. This is how we gather core samples from planets and other astronomical objects our space probes land on - they drill through the surface to take a sample to analyze.
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Videos:
Professor Dave Explains
The End of the Universe - Hot or Cold? - 8:14 min
Crash Course Astronomy - #27 - Exoplanets - 11:49 min
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