UNIVERSE
ASTEROIDS
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Question
[CLICK ON ANY CHOICE TO KNOW THE RIGHT ANSWER]
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Short period comets
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long period comets
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Either A or B
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None of the above
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Detailed explanation-1: -Long Trip. Short-period comets (which take less than 200 years to orbit the Sun) originate in the Kuiper Belt.
Detailed explanation-2: -Periodic comets (also known as short-period comets) are comets with orbital periods of less than 200 years or that have been observed during more than a single perihelion passage (e.g. 153P/Ikeya–Zhang). “Periodic comet” is also sometimes used to mean any comet with a periodic orbit, even if greater than 200 years.
Detailed explanation-3: -Other famous short-period comets include Comet Encke, Comet Swift-Tuttle and Comet Giacobini Zinner.
Detailed explanation-4: -As theorized by astronomer Gerard Kuiper in 1951, a disc-like belt of icy bodies exists beyond Neptune, where a population of dark comets orbits the Sun in the realm of Pluto. These icy objects, occasionally pushed by gravity into orbits bringing them closer to the Sun, become the so-called short-period comets.
Detailed explanation-5: -It’s one of the places where comets come from. The Kuiper Belt is a source of comets, as it very slowly erodes itself away. Pieces produced by colliding KBOs can be pushed by Neptune’s gravity into orbits that send them sunward, where Jupiter’s gravity further corrals them into short loops lasting 20 years or less.