Page 89 - Sphurana 2020-21 (4)
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Fire and Ice
➢ Comets are huge dirty snowballs left over when giant planets were formed.
➢ They orbit around the Sun in all directions.
➢ The heart of a comet is called a ‘Nucleus’. It is an irregular shape ball of snow and
is covered in a thin crust of dust.
➢ As a comet moves closer to the Sun, it forms a huge head of gas and dust. As it
moves farther from the Sun, the comet’s tail is reduced.
➢ Halley’s comet is one of the best-known comets. It is visible from Earth every 75
to 76 years. It was last spotted in 1986.
➢ A meteor is a chunk of rock and dust that burns up as it enters the Earth’s
atmosphere.
➢ If a meteor smashes into Earth, it is known as ‘Meteorite’.
➢ When meteors hit the Earth’s atmosphere, some of them explode. This can result
in a spectacular shower of lights that race through the sky.
➢ One such meteor shower can be seen every November, when Earth passes
through a swarm of meteors called ‘Leonid’.
Renuka. S. U.
II PU “A”
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