News
Release 42 -
Updates on
Comets &
Asteroids
Thursday, January
23, 2002
When solar wind & interstellar dust
particles collide with the comet's antimatter nucleus, a coma with ion,
hydrogen, & dusty tails are created as shown in the following pictures.
|
Picture of Comet Hale-Bopp
showing a blue plasma tail, by Peter Barvoets, April 1, 1997
|
- The Nucleus
of comets range from a less than a kilometer to
hundred kilometers in diameter with masses from million metric tons to
trillions of metric tons. The nucleus
is composed of antimatter stony & iron. Solar wind & interstellar
dust particles penetrate the magnetosphere around the nucleus and blast anti-neutrons, comet ions,
comet dust particles, & fragments off the
nucleus to create the comet's coma and tails.
- The Coma
is created from solar wind & interstellar dust colliding with comet's
nucleus and can become as large as 1,000 to 100,000 kilometers in diameter depending
upon the size of the nucleus and the distance from the sun. The protons annihilate
anti-protons to create different elements & anti-neutron. Anti-neutron's decay into anti-protons, positrons & neutrinos that become part of the coma and tails of the comet.
- The Tails
(Ion, Hydrogen, & Dusty) grow as the quantity of matter colliding
with the comet increases. The tails
are composed of solar wind & interstellar dust particles plus comet ions,
electrically charged dust particles, & fragments. The tails range in size from a
million to 100 million kilometers in length: the distance from the sun to the earth.
|
| Symmetry exist between
asteroids & comets.
Scientist have measured the
amount of matter
& antimatter in the comet's coma & tails; but additional research is
need to determine the ratio of matter & antimatter. |
When interstellar dust
particles collide in the center of the comet's nucleus, anti-tails
are sometimes created that point directly toward the sun. If a small asteroid
collides in the center of the
nucleus, the explosion can split the nucleus into fragments, which is what
happened to the Comet
LINEAR 1999 S4.
|
