What is the orbit length of Halley's Comet?

Answer 1

The largest OBJECT ever to hit the Earth was probably the proto-planet Theia that we believe collided with the proto-Earth, the debris from which formed the Moon. That probably was not a comet. Theia may have been as large as the planet Mars.

Beyond that, we really don't know. There isn't any way to determine, 65 million years after the fact, whether the impactor that probably caused the K-T extinctions and killed off the dinosaurs was really a comet, or an asteroid; perhaps it doesn't really matter. That object may have been as large as 10 miles in diameter. And we don't really KNOW the cause of the Great Permian Extinction 252 million years ago; it may have been an impact event, or there may have been other causes for the destruction of perhaps 95% of all life on Earth.

We believe that during the first couple of million years of Earth's existence, it probably suffered a great number of quite massive impacts, but we do not (as yet) have any detailed information about the early history of our planet.

Answer 2

A meteoroid is a sand to boulder sized particle of space debris.

When a meteoroid enters the Earths atmosphere it then becomes a meteor, however, it get's smaller and smaller as bit's (or all of it) are burnt off.

Answer 3

They vary in size. Most meteors - the ones that you see in the night sky - are smaller than a grain of rice, and more often the size of a grain of sand.

But the Earth is bombarded by thousands of meteors per day, and some of them are bigger - a LOT bigger. One crashed into a swamp in South America last year that was the size of a refrigerator; in October 2008, an asteroid the size of a car was observed on a collision course with the Earth 16 hours before it exploded over eastern Africa.

Answer 4

There is no single answer to that. Different comets are different shapes and sizes. Some are huge and some are small. There is not a standard size. Comets have their nucleus and their tail. The nucleus can be up to 20 even 25 kilometres across, but some are much smaller. The tail can be millions of kilometres long.

Answer 5

It can be any size. Depends on the size of meteor that crushes The Earth. If meteor is big, meteorite will be big but smaller than meteor. Imagine that the meteor of size of the Moon crushed The Earth. Until it burns in the atmosphere it will become smaller and t hen crush. But it still will be big. And now imagine a meteor with size of Empire State Building. That is going to be quite small when it crushes the Earth. The meteorite is what's left from meteor when it enters atmosphere and hits the Earth.

Answer 6

It depends on how old the meteorite is the older it is the bigger it will get when it comes down to earth.

Answer 7

About 750meters or less to about 20kilometers(12 miles)

Answer 8

About 10 meters - by definition. Anything bigger than that is called an asteroid, rather than a meteorite.

Answer 9

The average distance of Halley's comet from the sun is 33. 76 astronomical units. This is equal in distance to 3. 138 billion miles.

Answer 10

I'm not entirely sure if this is precise, but Halley's Comet has about a mass of 2.2 x 10^14 kg, which is about 4.85 x 10^14 pounds.