Page 15 - SOLAR SYSTEM

lo 199"1, a co•et sla••ed ioto
the giant j:>lanet Juj:>iter. The comet was
called Shoemaker-Levy 9. As it headed for
Jupiter, it broke up. One after another, the
pieces of the comet hurtled into Jupiter's
atmosphere at more than 200 times the
speed of a jet airliner, creating fireballs and
huge dust clouds.

Pieces ShoeMker Levy 9 heacl
~or Jupiter like a strihg pearls.

as The whole Sola, Syste• .ay be
A 'star' with a long tail
surrounded by millions o¥ comets) Scientists think
that some of the comets we see come from a vast cloud apr,eared Just betore the
of icy rocks that surrounds the entire Solar System. It'~ Battle o¥ Hastings in
called the Oort Cloud. Others come from a closer region 1066. It was actually a
outside Neptune, called the Kuiper Belt. comet The English king,
Harold II, thought it was
a Sign o¥ bad
luck. He was
right - he
lost the
battle/

a, The co111ets we see
troll! tillle to ti111e si,end only a
tiny i,art or their orbit n~ar the
Sun. The rest of the time, their long,
thin orbit takes them far away to the
outer reaches of the Solar System.
These can take thousands of years to
4 orbit the Sun. Some comets get caught
Comet 6rP appears ih the sky every 6-1 years. Oh l'.Z
Novem~r :Z.014, the f:uropeah Space /lgehcy's Rosetta spacecraft up in much smaller orbits and appear
illacle history by lahclihg a probe, Philae, Oh the comet. This image every few years.
was takeh by Philae durihg its desceht

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