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a. Halley's comet to moon.. ( w/c is larger ) give the specific sizes..
if u dont know the size of halley's comet, do you think that halley's comet is larger than Earth or vice versa?

pls answer. nid help, homework kinda rush.. tnx,. piut your sources.

2006-12-10 23:02:31 · 2 answers · asked by wangmu 1 in Science & Mathematics Astronomy & Space

2 answers

The Halley comet is only about 15 by 8 kilometers in size. The moon is a lot larger, at 3476km.

However the comet has it's "tail", coma, a trail of vapor and dust, that can stretch to 100000 kilometers in lenght. The nucleus of the comet is tiny compared to the tail that we see when a comet is passing the sun.

2006-12-10 23:15:59 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

As d64d64 says, the "size" of a comet depends on our definition of size.

When calculating orbits, astronomers consider the mass of the nucleus. Then any matter that is outgasses from the nucleus is considered being "lost" by the comet. Depending on the direction of the outgassing jets, they will act like tiny rockets, changing the orbit of the comet over time.

Therefore, the tails are considered the result of things "lost" by the comet; they are not part of the comet. Using this definition, a comet is very small when compared to our Moon or any planet.

However, the word "comet" comes from their appearance in the sky (from Latin "coma" = hair). They were (and still are, if you have a poetic soul) stars with hair. The coma and tails grow as the comet approaches the Sun. When the comet whips around and goes back to the colder regions of the solar system, the coma and tails diminish.

Therefore, from ethymological point of view, the tail is part of the comet; from this point of view, comets can be very long when they are close to the Sun. In May 1910, Earth went through Halley's tail. This implies that the tail was much larger than Earth. If the tail is part of the comet, then the comet was larger than Earth.

2006-12-11 00:24:41 · answer #2 · answered by Raymond 7 · 0 0

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