Sentences with phrase «formed by comet»

Not exact matches

Mathematical models, combined with our understanding of how planets and comets form, suggest that the objects in the Oort cloud must have been flung there by one of the giant planets closer to the sun.

But disintegration would in some ways be even more revealing because it would provide data on the comet's internal construction — and, by extension, on the way it formed in the first place.

Since that time, material vaporizing from sunlit areas of the comet and then condensing in shadowed regions (which a recent report suggests are about 50 °C cooler than those illuminated by the sun) may have helped form the neck joining the once - separate objects.

Unike Earth, Titan has no magnetic field of its own, but is surrounded by Saturn's rapidly rotating magnetic field, which drapes forming a comet - like tail around the moon.

The team that made this discovery, led by Yale University astronomer Tabetha Boyajian — the star's namesake — suggested a variety of explanations for its strange behavior, including that the star itself was variable, that it was surrounded by clouds of dust or dusty comets, or that planets around it had collided or were still forming.

It showed that the young sun was surrounded by a disk of gas and dust so agitated that particles in the hot, inner regions might be flung out to the cold, distant zone where comets formed.

The Rosetta mission taught us that comet nuclei form by gentle accretion of grains progressively greater in size.

Another group has conducted experiments suggesting that the water at these depths was formed on Earth rather than being delivered by comets and asteroids.

Nevertheless, the material in Tempel 1 matches that ejected by Comet Hale - Bopp in 1995 and that means that these comets formed in broadly similar ways, the researchers argue.

The shape and size of these chevrons suggest that they might have been formed by waves emanating from the impact of a comet slamming into the deep ocean off Madagascar.

Last year, researchers found that in conditions mimicking those sparked by a comet or meteorite impact, intense heat and pressure converted formamide (which forms when hydrogen cyanide reacts with water) and other simple substances into the four information - bearing nucleobases in RNA, a likely genetic precursor to DNA.

It is possible that comets are formed by bunching in such streams.

A new generation of sensitive, high - resolution telescopes will help resolve the debate by probing both dust clouds and the protoplanetary disks from which asteroids, comets, and planets form.

Existing theories assume that rings form when objects such as asteroids or comets are pulverised by the gravity of a planet like Saturn.

It did not look like a comet either, appearing under telescopic scrutiny to be shaped like a half - kilometer - long needle — a form unknown among natural solar system objects but often favored by starships in science fiction.

The formation of our Solar System was a chaotic collapse of gas and dust into the Sun, planets, asteroids, and comets we have today, punctuated by catastrophic collisions between these forming...

In addition to water, organic molecules, which could have been deposited on the surface by crashing comets, somehow would have to get through the thick shells of ice for life to form, a situation that puts Saturn's geyser - spewing moon Enceladus at the top of Nimmo's list of potential spots for life.

Unlike the hundreds of thousands of asteroids in the main belt of our solar system, which move cleanly along their orbits, active asteroids were discovered several years ago mimicking comets with their tails formed by calm, long lasting ice sublimation.

The modelling suggested that a Neptune - like planet actually formed much closer to Vega and was pushed by a Jupiter - like planet in an inner orbit out to its current wide orbit around 80 AUs away from Vega over about 56 million years, sweeping many comets out with it and causing the dust disk to become clumpy (Mark C. Wyatt, 2003).

According to the space agency, astronomers exploring a disk of gas and dust around a nearby star uncovered a compact cloud of poisonous gas formed by constant collisions among the comet - like bodies.

Formed by the impact of a large asteroid or comet, Caloris is one of the largest, and possibly one of the youngest, basins in the Solar System.

These gas - laden fullerenes were formed outside the Solar System, and their concentration in the sedimentary layer at the boundary of the Permian and Triassic periods means they were delivered by comets or asteroids.