Asteroids, Comets, and Meteorites, Oh My! - Willoughby
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Transcript Asteroids, Comets, and Meteorites, Oh My! - Willoughby
Asteroids, Meteroids, and
Comets…Oh my!
Asteroids
Asteroids – A rocky lump of frozen gas
that can range in size from a few hundred
feet to several hundred miles wide.
Matter that is similar in composition to the
planets. Sometimes, it’s called a
Planetoid.
Orbit in a belt between Mars and Jupiter.
Largest asteroid known: Ceres (1801)
Asteroid Gaspra – photographed by
the Galileo spacecraft in 1991.
What prevents the Asteroids in the
belt from plunging into the sun and
hitting the inner planets in the
process?
The Sun’s gravity and Jupiter’s
gravity!
Meteoroids
Meteoroids – Small fragments of
matter, like rock, stone, and metals
(smaller than asteroids) that orbit
the sun at a variety of speeds; pieces
of planets, moon, or asteroids
Meteor - “shooting star”
• This happens when a meteoroid enters
Earth’s atmosphere and begins to burn.
• Briefly visible
• Fireball – Long streaks of bright light
created by these racing meteors
Fireball from a meteor in the night
sky.
Pennsylvania 1992
Sometimes meteors strike Earth!
Meteorite – a meteor that impacts the
ground.
• Most meteorites fall into the oceans.
• Most meteorites fall to earth as dust,
because they burn up in the atmosphere.
• “Micrometeorites” strike Earth daily. These
can be as small as pebbles.
• Size of a mountain every 10,000 years.
• Craters are created when large meteorites
strike a moon or planet.
3 km wide in Quebec, Canada
Largest Meteorite to strike US – Oregon
1902
1954 – crashed through the living room
and injured a woman.
What’s the difference between a
meteoroid, meteor, and meteorite?
Meteoroid – still in space
Meteor – enters earth’s
atmosphere
Meteorite – meteor that
strikes earth because it’s
so big it doesn’t burn up.
Seen during a football
game.
Pieces of it crashed into
the trunk of a parked car.
Meteor Shower
The 1966 Leonids Meteor Shower
Arizona; 2300/minute for 20 minutes
Comets
Comets – lumps of frozen gas and rock that orbit
the sun in a highly eccentric way.
A heavenly body that is usually named after its
discoverer.
Believed to originate in an Oort cloud. (Huge cloud
that is thought to surround our solar system).
Nucleus – the center of a comet.
Coma – large halo of gas and dust that forms
around the nucleus of a comet when it gets close to
the sun. It actually loses mass as it gets close to
the sun.
More about a comet
Comets orbit the sun in an elliptical
pattern.
Comets have tails. Their tails are made
of frozen gases, cosmic dust, and rocky
particles. As a comet travels toward the
sun, its head leads the way. But as it
travels away, its tail leads the way. This is
due to Solar winds.
Haley’s comet – a space curiosity that
returns to Earth’s view every 76 years.
Haley’s Comet
It has been spotted for thousands of years.
Sir Edmond Halley – English
astronomer (1656-1742)
Can you find Haley’s Comet in the
tapestry below dated from 1066 A.D.?