Question

Comets travel in orbits around the Sun. Some comets take less than 200 years to orbit the Sun. They are called short-period comets. Short-period comets are thought to originate in the Kuiper Belt, which is a belt of icy objects just beyond the orbit of the planet . The dwarf planet is located in this belt. NextReset

Answer 1

Comets are small, irregularly shaped bodies in the solar system composed mainly of ice and dust that typically measure a few kilometers across. They travel around the sun in very elliptical orbits that bring them very close to the Sun, and then send them out past Neptune. There are two categories of comet, based on the amount of time they take to orbit the Sun. Short-period comets take less than 200 years, and long-period comets take over 200 years, with some taking 100,000 to 1 million years to orbit the Sun. The short-period comets are found near the ecliptic, which means they are orbiting the Sun in same plane as the planets. The short-period comets are thought to originate in the Kuiper Belt, an area outside Neptune's orbit (from about 30 to 50 AU) that has many icy comet-like objects. The long-period comets tend to have orbits that are randomly oriented, and not necessarily anywhere near the ecliptic. They are thought to originate in the Oort cloud. The Oort cloud has never been observed, but is believed to have at least 1012icy objects located between 3000 AU and 100,000 AU in a spherical distribution around the Sun.