AETHERION LEARN
Small Worlds: Dwarf Planets, Asteroids and Comets · Lesson 65 · Teacher license

How Comets Work

Students learn the parts of a comet (nucleus, coma, dust tail and ion tail), why comets brighten and grow tails near the Sun, what the Rosetta mission and Philae lander found at Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko, and where comets come from in the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud.

Grades 5-8About 15 minutes of narrated flight, plus discussion stops9 stops

Start this lessonOpen the full guideGet a teacher license

The full guide, with the 40-minute plan, discussion key points, exit ticket, activities, transcript and PDF, comes with a teacher license. Already licensed? Use Open the full guide.

What students will see and do

Students fly to Halley's Comet, close to the Sun, to Comet Encke, to Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko, out to Pluto in the Kuiper Belt, and back for a view of the whole solar system and Earth. Aetherion pauses for discussion near the Sun (why tails point away from the Sun), at Churyumov-Gerasimenko (learning from Philae's bouncy landing) and at the solar system overview (evidence for the unseen Oort Cloud).

Learning objectives

NGSS connections

MS-ESS1-2Students describe how gravity shapes comet orbits, speeding comets up near the Sun and nudging them inward from the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud.
MS-PS3-3Students connect solar heating to sublimation of comet ices, the thermal process that creates the coma and tails.
MS-ESS1-3Students compare the size of a comet nucleus with the size of its coma and tails and with the scale of the Oort Cloud.

Stops on this journey

  1. A Frozen Heart
  2. Waking Up Near the Sun
  3. Two Different Tails (discussion stop)
  4. The Comet with a Quick Orbit
  5. Rosetta and the Rubber Duck
  6. Philae's Bouncy Landing (discussion stop)
  7. Home in the Kuiper Belt
  8. The Faraway Oort Cloud (discussion stop)
  9. Comets and Your Planet

Vocabulary