Amazon Quiz (September 13, 2021): The name of this object comes from a Greek word meaning what?
The options are:
-Hot-headed
-Big-mouthed
-Large-hearted
-Long-haired
The answer is: Long-haired
A comet is a small chunk of icy material that develops an atmosphere when passing close to the Sun. The chunk begins to warm up and begins to release gases, which is known as outgassing. This produces a visible atmosphere or coma, and sometimes also a tail.
The phenomenon is due to the effects of solar radiation and solar wind. The nuclei of a comet range from a few hundred meters to tens of kilometers across. A comet is composed of loose collections of ice, dust, and small rocky particles.
Comets have been witnessed from the earliest times and their accounts are found in the histories of all ancient civilizations.
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Comets are different from asteroids. The difference in its icy composition prompts them to brighten dramatically as they approach the Sun. In some cultures, comets are also called “hairy stars” and some even considered them to be omes of disaster.
Since comets have been witnessed from the earliest times, records of thousands of comets, too, exist. In March 1996, Comet Hyakutake came with a very long tail and a year later came Comet Hale-Bopp. It was as bright as the brightest stars and was visible for several weeks.
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Comets usually have highly eccentric elliptical orbits and have a wide range of orbital periods. Long-period comets are believed to have originated in the Oort cloud, which is a spherical cloud of icy bodies that extends from outside of the Kuiper belt to halfway to the nearest star.
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