Question For Steve Or Waveform

How come you can see comets but not asteroids? Does the sun reflect off the ice of comets, where it can't off the rock of asteroids? Thanks for any info.

[aslkahuna]

First off, you CAN see asteroids (in fact Vesta was at naked eye visibility this past Summer) though mostly with telescopes as is also usually the case with comets since most are faint. The bright comets evaporate a lot of volatiles and dust as they approach the Sun and the gases ionize and give off light when they recombine and the dust reflects the sunlight. Though a comet nucleus is generally smaller than the the larger asteroids, the halo of gases and dust given off due to Solar heating and the tail extending off due to Solar Wind and light pressure make the visible comet much larger. Asteroids have no volatiles and hence shine only by reflected light and their albedos are not all that high hence they are fainter. Those are just some of the factors involved.

Steve

Sweet man, I didn't know you could see asteroids well. What do they look like man? Like small stars in the sky?

[aslkahuna]

Sweet man, I didn't know you could see asteroids well. What do they look like man? Like small stars in the sky?[/b]

Yep-that's why they are called asteroids.

Steve