Comet dust

Comet dust refers to cosmic dust that originates from a comet. Comet dust can provide clues to comets' origin. When the Earth passes through a comet dust trail, it can produce a meteor shower.

The models for the origin of comets are:

Bulk properties of the comet dust such as density as well as the chemical composition can distinguish between the models. For example, the isotopic ratios of comet and of interstellar dust are very similar, indicating a common origin.

The 1) interstellar model says that ices formed on dust grains in the dense cloud that preceded the Sun. The mix of ice and dust then aggregated into a comet without appreciable chemical modification. J. Mayo Greenberg first proposed this idea in 1986.

In the 2) Solar System model, the ices that formed in the interstellar cloud first vaporized as part of the accretion disk of gas and dust around the protosun. The vaporized ices later resolidified and assembled into comets. So the comets in this model would have a different composition than those comets that were made directly from interstellar ice.

The 3) primordial rubble pile model for comet formation says that comets agglomerate in the region where Jupiter was forming.

Stardust's discovery of crystalline silicates in the dust of comet Wild 2 implies that the dust formed above glass temperature (> 1000 K) in the inner disk region around a hot young star, and was radially mixed in the solar nebula from the inner regions a larger distance from the star or the dust particle condensed in the outflow of evolved red giants or supergiants. The composition of the dust of comet Wild 2 is similar to the composition of dust found in the outer regions of the accretion disks around newly-forming stars.

A comet and its dust allow investigation of the Solar System beyond the main planetary orbits. Comets are distinguished by their orbits; long period comets have long elliptical orbits, randomly inclined to the plane of the Solar System, and with periods greater than 200 years. Short period comets are usually inclined less than 30 degrees to the plane of the Solar System, revolve around the Sun in the same counterclockwise direction as the planets orbit, and have periods less than 200 years.

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