ASTR 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 17: Oort Cloud, Orbital Period, Kuiper Belt
26 Dec 2017
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Document Summary
Earth has a sizable magnetic field but jovians have much greater magnetic field. Jupiter"s gravity has a huge impact on asteroid belt. Almost looks triangular (pink) but is not - each individual asteroid travels in an ellipse. Need to explain composition, structure, position, etc of asteroids. Kipper belt has huge amount of water compared to earth. High enough gravity - forms into a sphere. All the mass in asteroid belt still has less mass than our moon. Comet vs asteroids: comets have very elliptical orbits - originate in the kipper belt. Asteroids come from asteroid belt; they are larger and more influenced by earth"s gravity. Comet not likely to get caught in earth"s gravity. Asteroid tracks close enough to earth that they can get pulled in. Because comets come from kipper belt, they are thought to be some of the oldest unchanged matter in our solar system. It"s isotope composition now tracks back to how it was at the beginning.
