1. Comets and Stardust Astronomy Club December 13 th, 2006

2. Structure of a Comet Ion Tail Dust Tail Coma To Sun

3. Comet Composition Nucleus –10 km “Dirty Snowball” –Rocks and ice Coma – gas around the nucleus –Cloud of evaporated ices and ions –may be 100,000 km in diameter Tail –Always points away from Sun Solar Wind and Radiation Pressure Comet Hale-Bopp

4. 1997—Comet Hale-Bopp Can you spot the coma, gas tail, and curved dust tail?

5. The Oort Cloud Birthplace of long-period comets there is no preferential direction from which comets come. Consists of debris left over from the condensation of the solar nebula

6. Bayeaux Tapestry Norman Invasion of 1066 Comet Halley

8. Hale-Bopp

9. Hyakutake

10. Hale-Bopp

11. Comet West

12. Comet Wild 2

13. Stardust

14. Stardust Spacecraft

15. Launched on Feb. 7, 1999 by NASA

16. Encounter January 2004 Earth Return January 2006

18. Aerogel

19. Sample Return Capsule & Collector Grid

21. Stardust @ Home! http://stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ Help scientist to find stardust particles in the gel slides  save time “By asking for help from talented volunteers like you … we can do this project in months instead of years. “ This is a tutorial: http://stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ss_ tutorial_start.php http://stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ss_ tutorial_start.php

22. For more information http://stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ www.physics.sfasu.edu/markworth/ast105/ Minor-Bodies.pptwww.physics.sfasu.edu/markworth/ast105/ Minor-Bodies.ppt http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K- 12/DLN/descriptions/presentations/sb_co met_wild_2_stardust.ppthttp://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K- 12/DLN/descriptions/presentations/sb_co met_wild_2_stardust.ppt Wikipedia