Astronomy AST-A 100 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Scattering, Roche Limit, Terrestrial Planet
1 Nov 2016
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Topics (not exhaustive, but covers the most important material) Accretion: the process in which seeds grow into a planet. Asteroids: planetesimals left over from the birth of the solar system, some 4. 5 billion years ago the first asteroid was discovered 200 years ago, they are dark and small, this makes discovery rather difficult. Ceres: live in the asteroid belt, also large enough that gravity has made it spherical, technically a dwarf planet, smaller asteroids are not spherical and thus take on a variety of different shapes. Comet structure (nucleus, coma, tails): nucleus: dirty icy core, ice and carbon rich material also can have rock & metals. Density of comets is less than 1,000 km, part ice and voids. Coma: as the comet travels toward the sun the ices begin to sublimate, the escaping gas create a mini atmosphere that surrounds the nucleus. Plasma point away from the sun and dynamically moving.
