Can comets actually cause gravitational pull on planets?
Published on 14 Sep 2011 at 12:00 am.
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What happens when a comet passes close to a planet? Can it exert a gravitational pull on that planet? We would hope not, because there are over four thousand known comets, and over a trillion comet like bodies in the solar system. Comets are of such insignificant size and mass that they cannot pull a planet out of course, much to the chagrin of science fiction doomsday fans.
Comets are made up of icy volatile gases and organic compounds. As the comet is exposed to solar radiation its volatile gases vaporize. It is thought that these vaporizing plumes of volatile gasses push the comet on a wobbling course.The nucleus of most comets is calculated to be somewhere between 100 meters and 40 kilometers across. That size is not sufficient to cause gravitational pull on other planets. Consider the example of Earth’s Moon. It is about 3500 kilometers in diameter, and it barely exerts gravity on the earth. It affects our tides and the length of our day, but that is all.
Some more recent studies emphasize the electrical capacity and attraction ability of comets. Even so, it has not been shown that they exert a gravitational pull on the planets.If you like what you see, keep going: Comet Elenin Poses No Threat to Earth, NASA Says