Question

describe the kuiper belt and oort cloud in terms of location, the orbits and number of comets within it, and its likely origin. drag the items on the left to the appropriate blanks on the right to complete the sentences. resethelp the blankis similar to blank except that it is beyond the orbit of neptune and is filled with icy bodies rather than rocky and metallic ones. comets in it have blank orbits that are blank and go around the sun in blank direction. comets probably blank.target 1 of 12target 2 of 12target 3 of 12target 4 of 12target 5 of 12target 6 of 12 the blank is blank of comets well outside of the orbits of the planets. comets in it have blank orbits that are blank and go around the sun in blank direction. comets probably blank.

Answer 1

The Kuiper belt is a disk-shaped region beyond Neptune with over 100,000 objects, serving as the origin of many short-period comets. The Oort cloud is a distant spherical shell containing up to 10 trillion comets and is the source of long-period comets. Both regions contain remnants of the solar system's formation, influenced by the gravity of gas giant planets.

Step-by-step explanation:

• The Kuiper belt is a disk-shaped region beyond the orbit of Neptune, extending to about 50 AU from the Sun. It contains numerous ice-and-rock planetesimals and is believed to host over 100,000 objects with diameters larger than 100 kilometers. These are remnants of the solar system's formation, and the region is the source of many short-period comets, which have somewhat stable orbits influenced by Neptune's gravity.

• The Oort cloud is a vast, spherical region surrounding the Sun, extending to about 50,000 AU, near the edge of the Sun's gravitational influence. It is estimated to contain between a trillion (1012) to ten trillion (1013) comets. The Oort cloud's comets have highly elliptical orbits and can be perturbed by nearby stars, leading them towards the inner solar system as long-period comets.

Both of these regions are thought to have formed from icy pieces near the orbits of Uranus and Neptune that were ejected by the gravitational forces of the gas giant planets. These objects serve as a reservoir of primitive material left over from the solar system's formation, making them of great interest to astronomers.