SOLAR SYSTEM

Detailed explanation-1: -Orbit of a Comet. Comets go around the Sun in a highly elliptical orbit. They can spend hundreds and thousands of years out in the depths of the solar system before they return to Sun at their perihelion. Like all orbiting bodies, comets follow Kepler’s Laws-the closer they are to the Sun, the faster they move.

Detailed explanation-2: -A comet is in elliptical orbit around the Sun. Its closest approach to the Sun is a distance of 4 × 10 10 m (inside the orbit of Mercury), at which point its speed is. 17 × 10 4 m / s .

Detailed explanation-3: -Comet Halley moves about the Sun in an elliptical orbit, with its closest approach to the Sun being about 0. 590 AU and its greatest distance 35. 0 AU (1 AU= the Earth-Sun distance). The angular momentum of the comet about the Sun is constant, and the gravitational force exerted by the Sun has zero moment arm.

Detailed explanation-4: -The speed of Halley’s Comet, while traveling in its elliptical orbit around the Sun, is constant.

Detailed explanation-5: -When comet orbits around Sun in an elliptical orbit, it is under action of a central force and its angular momentum remains constant.

Detailed explanation-6: -Comets move around the sun in highly elliptical orbits. The gravitational force on the comet due to the sun is not normal to the comet’s velocity in general. Yet the work done by the gravitational force over every complete orbit of the comet is zero.

Detailed explanation-7: -The orbit of the Halley’s Comet is elliptical with a high eccentricity, which is equal to 0.97, compared to 0.0167 for the Earth, or in other words, the major axis of the ellipse is about four times greater than the minor axis.