Comets and their orbits

Comets and their orbits

Pencil and paper
Overview
Connecting to the Curriculum
Marking Student Responses
Further Resources
Students use information to label a diagram and draw the orbit of a comet.
Comets are balls of frozen ice and gas that contain rocky fragments. Most of the mass of a comet is in its nucleus. A comet's orbit is longer and narrower than the orbit of a planet. As the comet approaches the Sun, some of the nucleus evaporates forming the coma  around it, together with a glowing tail of dust and gases. This tail points away from the Sun.
 
a)		  
Use the information above to label this cross section of a comet.
 

 

 
b) Part of the orbit of a comet has been drawn. Complete the rest of the comet's orbit.
 
 
 
c) The diagrams below show a comet in two different parts of its orbit. Redraw these comets onto the orbit in question b). (Use the information in the box to help you).
 
 
 

 

Level:
5
Curriculum info: 
Science, Communicating in science, Planet Earth
Keywords: 
astronomical systems, comets, diagrams
Description of task: 
Using information about comets, students label a diagram of a comet and draw the orbit of a comet and the position of the comet in two places in its orbit.
Curriculum Links: 
Science capabilities
The capabilities focus is brought about by the conversations you have and the questions you ask.
 
Capability: Interpret representations
Scientists represent their ideas in a variety of ways, including models, graphs, charts, diagrams and written texts.
This resource provides opportunities to discuss the challenges of turning written texts into visual texts.
Science capabilities: 
Interpret representations
Answers/responses: 
 

Y10 (08/2001)

a)

Correctly labels the comet with each of the following:

nucleus - moderate
 coma - difficult
 tail - easy

b)

difficult

c)

Comets are drawn with their tail pointing away from the Sun.
The comet with the longest tail is drawn closest to the Sun.

difficult
 very difficult