Why was the Shoemaker-Levy nine impact so important to astronomers?
Why was the Shoemaker-Levy nine impact so important to astronomers?
Why was the Shoemaker-Levy 9 impact so important to astronomers? It dredged up material that gave us our first direct look at Jupiter’s interior composition. What characteristic distinguishes a meteorite from a terrestrial rock? Why does the plasma tail of a comet always point away from the Sun?
What is true about the impacts of the pieces of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with Jupiter?
Several months after its discovery, pieces of the comet smashed into the planet Jupiter. The collision produced scars that were visible from Earth.
When was the Shoemaker-Levy 9 impact?
The train of fragments from Shoemaker-Levy 9 smashed into Jupiter’s atmosphere with a velocity of 221,000 km (137,300 miles) per hour beginning on July 16, 1994. They all hit on the unobservable night side beyond the limb of Jupiter as seen from Earth.
Why are meteorites important to scientists?
But scientists spend their careers studying meteorites because they contain a record of our solar system’s history going back some 4.6 billion years. By studying meteorites, we can learn details about how our solar system evolved into the Sun and planets of today—and how meteorite impacts could affect our future.
Why won’t Pluto collide with Neptune Why won’t Pluto collide with Neptune?
Why won’t Pluto collide with Neptune? Pluto orbits the Sun exactly 2 times for every 3 Neptune orbits, which ensures they never come close together. Pluto’s orbit never comes anywhere close to Neptune’s orbit. Actually, a collision of the two is inevitable within the next billion years.
Do asteroids hit the sun?
No asteroids have ever been observed to hit the Sun, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t! Asteroids are normally content to stay in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, but occasionally something nudges them out of their original orbits, and they come careening into the inner solar system.
Why is important for us to study meteors comets and asteroids?
The asteroids, comets and meteoroids are important to the solar system because they are the main raw elements of planets. They are also important because they were to be believed as ancient remnants of the earliest years of the formation of our solar system.