It has been estimated that Halley's comet has a mass of 100 billion tons. Further, this comet is estimated to

Question

lose 100 million tons of material during the few months that its orbit brings it close to the sun. With an orbital period of 76 years, what is the maximum remaining life span of Halley's comet?

Help!! Please =)

Answer 1

100 billion divided by 100 million is 1000. It therefore has 1000 cycles left and a cycle is 76 years. Seem easy enough to complete.
☼

Answer 2

We also have to remember that Halley's comet is not just one big ball of ice. It is a mixture of ices, dust, small pebbles and other non-volatile materials.

Since we don't know what percentage of its mass is volatile (and so will vaporize and be lost with each orbit), we can't calculate the lifespan accurately.
And at some point, from gravitational interactions with Jupiter, Saturn, and the sun, Halley's comet could fracture into multiple fragments (like Comet Shoemaker-Levy did), which could speed up its evaporation.

And it could also, again from gravitational interactions with Jupiter, Saturn, and the sun, end up with a different orbit than today and crash into Jupiter (like Shoemaker-Levy) or even be ejected from the solar system completely.

Answer 3

Beware of mis- assumptions.
The loss is not a constant.
It' s like a "half Life" calculation:
1/1000 of the mass per orbit.
It will go on till the orbit changes,
getting smaller & smaller, but never
quite disappearing.

Answer 4

I agree with Irv S. The amount lost will in some way be proportional to the amount remaining. If it loses 1/1,000th of its mass with each pass by the sun, then it will never disappear completely, at least mathematically. It will just get smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller........... However, ice cubes in hot tea do eventually melt completely, so the exact life expectancy is hard to predict.

Answer 5

Yes, Barkley is right. 76000 years with the Halley, but usually the smaller comet can divide, shorting the life span.