Small Bodies Asteroids, Meteoroids and Comets

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Small BodiesAsteroids, Meteoroids and Comets

• What are they?
• Where are they?
• Why do we study them?

http//nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/imgcat/html/object_page
/nea_19970627_mos.html
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Asteroids, Meteroids and CometsWhat are they?

• Asteroids
• Objects ranging from 1 km to almost 1000km
• Made of rock and other left-over space material
  (primarily carbon, iron and silicates.
• Observable orbits, generally around the sun.

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• Several types of asteroids
• C-type Carbon
• S-type Silicate
• M-type Metal

http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image4_Vesta_1_Ceres
_Moon_at_20_km_per_px.png
Some asteroids are known to have other asteroids
orbiting them. Mars moons are suspected to be
asteroids pulled out of the Suns orbit.
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• Meteoroids
• Considered to be like asteroids in composition,
  but smaller. Usually less than 10 km.
• Meteoroids are asteroids heading toward Earth.
• Once meteoroids enter Earths atmosphere, the
  are called meteors.
• Meteors that do not burn up in the atmosphere
  (which most do) are then called Meteorites.

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• Although most meteors are burned-up by the
  Earths atmosphere, there is plenty of evidence
  on the Earth to suggest major meteorite impact
  throughout history.

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Asteroids and MeteoroidsWhere are they?

• The asteroid belt is located between the orbit of
  Mars and Jupiter
• There are almost 750,000 asteroids in this area,
  with miliions of smaller bodies.
• (The NASA website suggests that over a million
  asteroids are in this region)

http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ImageInnerSolarSyste
m-en.png
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Comets

• Small bodies made of two parts
• Nucleus
• Comma (a.k.a Tail)
• Generally comets orbit the Sun, but their orbit
  is also influenced by the comma.

http//csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/comets/com
ets.html
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• The nucleus are made of ice and dust particles
• The commas are made of gases, which are more
  reactive the closer the closer they get to the
  Sun.

http//csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/comets/com
ets.html
Although there is a ton of superstitious
sentiment surrounding the presence of comets,
only one every decade can be seen from Earth by
the naked eye.
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Asteroids, Meteoroids and CometsWhy do we study
them?

• Knowing more about these bodies of our solar
  system help us understand more about Earth.
• The more we know about our Solar System, the
  better we questions we can answer about what we
  are seeing when we look at the sky.

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Awesome Resources

• Comets video
• Asteroids video
• Lesson Plans
• General information
• Further Exploration