Where do comets get enough energy to travel around the Sun and back into the outer solar system and back again

Question

If it is indeed the works of Sun's gravity....then shouldn't say...idk...pluto travel in the same orbital path as comets which come from outer system Oort clouds??

Answer 1

Comets at the outer extremes of their orbit are pulled toward the sun by gravity, increasing their kinetic energy. By the time they near the sun they are travelling so fast that instead of being pulled into the sun, they hurtle by it; however, as they miss the sun, their orbit is bent around it, so their kinetic energy is at a maximum as they circle the sun on the side opposite from their starting point. Then they hurtle by the sun again, now headed back toward deep space. Their speed at this time is still very high, but as they move away from the sun, their kinetic energy decreases, while their potential energy increases proportionately. Eventually, nearly all of their kinetic energy has been converted to potential energy, and they are back at their starting point, ready to begin again the long fall back toward the sun.

A certain fraction of the comet's mass and energy is lost in each passage, as its tail stretches back through millions of miles of space, and we see some of these particles in occasional meteor showers.

Answer 2

Sorry guys, but the answer is Jupiter.

Comets and asteroids are in stable orbits around the sun. Those that were not were long ago sucked in or lost.

Jupiter is a large mass though, and a moving one at that. A lot of its moons, at last count 63 (3 more than Saturn) were sucked into orbit from as far away as the Kuiper Belt or the Ooort Cloud.

As Jupiter revolves around the sun it adds to and subtracts to the solar gravitational influence out in the Kuiper Belt, a ring of asteroids and space junk beyond the orbit of Uranus. A lot of the time it sucks those objects right into it; Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 was a perfect example. However, Jupiter is a small target when compared to the size of the solar system. So that means a lot of the asteroids and comets are put into a falling orbit that misses Jupiter and revolves around the sun. Some of these get sucked into the sun and are gone, but a good percentage reach a stable orbit. Halley’s Comet is one such object, and it passes near to the earth every 75 years. The annual meteor shower this month was caused by the Comet Swift-Tuttle.

The asteroid belt, between Mars and Jupiter is a pretty stable set of rocks. The gravitational tugs between Jupiter and the sun broke up an early planet into the ring of debris we know today. The Kuiper Belt is a collection of lose junk that is out beyond Uranus which originally formed when the rest of the solar system formed. The Oort Cloud is even further out and a continuation of the Kuiper Belt. Pluto used to be a border between the two, but Pluto got demoted to a dwarf planet. The Sun’s gravity field extends way out into space well beyond the edges of the Oort Cloud. However, things out that far aren’t affected by Jupiter that much. Most of the NEOs (Near Earth Orbiting objects) come from the Kuiper Belt.

- An asteroid is a collection of mostly heavy metals, the most common are iron and nickel.
- Comets are loose collections of ice and rock, when the get close to the sun the comet’s tail is formed as the ice melts and some comet material is shed. Since this doesn’t happen until the comet gets close to the sun it is harder to find them.

There is a lot of space junk out there and a lot of it seems to be on course for the Earth. Just look at the moon to see what I mean. The Tyco crater is the remains of one asteroid collision that tired to split the moon in 1/2.

According to a recent show on the History Channel the Earth gets hit by a piece of softball to football sized cosmic debris once every 4 hours; I don’t mean shooting stars that burn up in the atmosphere. I mean space rocks that actually reach the surface of the earth. We are under constant bombardment. Spaceguard is a program to try and find all those NEOs and plot their course so we can find the next asteroid or comet that could cause a mass extinction, like what hit the dinosaurs.

The Oort Cloud hasn’t been observed, but thanks to the demotion of Pluto it is just a continuation of the Kuiper Belt to the edge of the sun's gravity effect. The Oort Cloud and Kuiper belt are well within the Roche Limit of the sun. The Roche Limit is a point where a specific sized mass can be pulled apart by the gravity of the body it is orbiting. This is the effect that creates the rings around Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. The asteroid belt can be considered a ring around the sun, the Kuiper Belt is the same, the Oort cloud is a cloud of debris that could be anywhere in range of the sun, not necessarily on the elliptical plane. The sun’s elliptical plane is close to its equator and the plane where most of the planets orbit. One problem with Pluto is it has an inclined revolution that use to make it the planet with the biggest orbital inclination. That is one reason why it got demoted to a Dwarf Planet status.

I have to give Rev. Albert Einstein a few points check out this article for why: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oort_cloud
I still believe in the Ooort Cloud because that describes all the interstellar junk that would have been dragged into a solar orbit, or just in range of the sun to be affected by the sun’s gravity. There really is no known edge of the Kuiper Belt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuiper_belt). The Oort cloud is supposed to be 1,000 further out, but it is still well within the sun’s gravity field.

Answer 3

They are in gravitational orbital paths around the Sun. No different than a planet orbiting the Sun except that the orbit of a comet is highly elliptical and generally extends to the Oort cloud.

Regarding your additionals- The orbit of Pluto is elliptical as compared to the more circular orbits of planets. This was taken into consideration when Pluto was demoted to dwarf planet status. Pluto orbits the Sun in what is termed the Kupier belt. The Kupier belt is also a source of comets. A comet is not similar to a dwarf planet. A comet is more of a dirty ice mass. Matter in the Oort cloud and Kupier belt is not just sitting there. It is composed of material that is also orbiting the Sun. When there is a disturbance, some of this matter can get kicked out of it's normal orbit. Sometimes they collide into planets. Sometimes they collide into the Sun. Sometimes they can be sent into space and are never seen again. And sometimes they are lucky enough to establish a highly elliptical orbit around the Sun.

Answer 4

All the planets and asteroids travel around the sun. Most of the comets do also. A very few comets are "one time" visitors, just passing through our solar system. For the comets that do orbit the sun, about 1/2 orbit in retrograde orbits (clockwise). Everything else travels in the the same direction: counter-clockwise around the sun (as seen from far above the North pole). But they all have different speeds and paths.

Answer 5

Don't believe the deception that comets come from the so called 'Oort cloud'.....the Oort cloud has never been 'observed' and it is only a speculation that it actually exists way out there beyond the solar system because no one could figure out why so many short period comets STILL exist in the solar system...(provided that the solar sysytem is billions of years old)..

Comet orbits are highly ellliptical, bringing them very close to the sun.
Everyone realizes that IF the solar system is really billions of yrs old then all of the short period comets would have disappeared LONG ago..(We know the disintergration rate as they continually pass the sun)....therefore in order to keep the idea that the solar system is billions of years old...SOME mechanism had to be 'invented' that would replenish the supply of comets ever so often.

Thus the Oort cloud....however, it is still only speculation NOT proven fact....and NO comet has ever been observed COMING FROM THE so -called Oort cloud into our solar system.

Answer 6

99.9999% of the objects in the Oort Cloud, including Pluto, move in circular orbits and never enter the inner solar system. Comets are the exception.

Answer 7

Simple answer - from the sun.

Recall that 99.9% of the Solar System is the sun.

And the previous respondant who said they haven't got energy is wrong. Everything that moves has kinetic energy. That energy is imparted to the comet by the sun.

Answer 8

They are not using ANY energy. It is the gravity of the sun that pulls it, as well as the planets but to a much lesser extent...just as the Earth is using no energy going around the sun. Gravity is a force of nature, hence no energy is really being used.

Answer 9

Planets orbits are nearly round.
Comets orbits are very elliptical.
Nothing special about that.