PHYS 284 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Comet Dust, Kuiper Belt, Oort Cloud

• School: Concordia University
• Department: Physics
• Course: PHYS 284
• Professor: Mario D'Amico

Document Summary

12. 1 classifying small bodies the sun is also orbited by vast numbers of small bodies, ranging in size from specks of dust to pluto and. Eris, the largest k(cid:374)o(cid:449)(cid:374) of the (cid:862)d(cid:449)arf pla(cid:374)ets. (cid:863) broadl(cid:455) speaki(cid:374)g, all of these o(cid:271)je(cid:272)ts are lefto(cid:448)ers fro(cid:373) the era of planet formation. Recall that, today, we use relatively simple definitions of asteroids and comets: both orbit the. Sun and are too small to be considered planets, but asteroids are rocky while comets are ice-rich. Dwarf planet category has been used only since 2006, so let"s explore these classifications in a little more detail. The word asteroid (cid:373)ea(cid:374)s (cid:862)starlike,(cid:863) (cid:271)ut there"s reall(cid:455) (cid:374)othi(cid:374)g starlike a(cid:271)out asteroids; the (cid:374)a(cid:373)e is a(cid:374) artifact from the time when all we knew about them was that, like stars, The first asteroid discovery came in 1801, only about 20 years after the discovery of uranus.