Table of Contents

Tracking a Comet

Module 5: Comets, Meteors and Asteroids

Button controls:

• (1) Help button:
  • This button will open a window with help information
• (2) Controller buttons:

• (A) Reset: reload the applet and reset the parameters
• (B) Rewind: press and hold to advance the applet in reverse
• (C) Pause: temporarily stop the action in the applet
• (D) Play: begin or resume the action in the applet
• (E) Fast Forward: press and hold to advance the applet
• (F) End: advance the applet to its end
• (G) Speed: click to select the number and input a higher number to increase the speed of the rewind and fast forward buttons
• (H) Slider bar: shows the progression through the animation
• (I) Drag controller: click and drag over this symbol to reposition the controller buttons within the applet frame
• (J) Collapse button: click this button to collapse controller button

Using the applet:

This applet has been designed to show the path of a short period comet (3) through the solar system (4). As the comet travels around the Sun, it leaves a trail of small dust particles, depicted on the diagram as the yellow speckled line. Students should note that the comet shown has a highly elliptical orbit, which brings it both very close to the Sun as well as beyond the orbit of Pluto.

After the comet passes through the solar system for the second time, the applet will zoom in on the point where the Earth's orbit crosses the cometary debris path. This event produces an annual meteor shower on Earth. Students can then click on the "Show meteor shower" button (5) to observe what a meteor shower looks like. The animation shown depicts the Leonid meteor shower.