Page 52 - Curriculum Visions Dynamic Book

Pluto’s orbit
Kuiper belt and outer Solar System planetary orbits
Orbit of binary Kuiper belt object 1998 WW31
The Oort cloud
(containing many billions of comets)
 The two belts of material that could make comets: the oort cLoud and the Kuiper beLt.
some get pulled off this stable path, and then they begin to travel across the plane of the planets, developing a coma and a tail that makes them visible even to the naked eye—they become comets.
Comets give off a constant stream of dust and gas, which gradually forms a mass of particles that traces out the orbit of the comet. When the Earth crosses the path of one of these trails, thousands of small dust particles enter the atmosphere and burn up, creating a meteor shower.
How the Solar System was formed
Finding out about the origin of the Solar System is one of the biggest challenges facing astronomers. Although our knowledge of space has increased immeasurably over the last few decades as space probes have sent back much invaluable
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