Meteors, Comets, and Asteroids

Science 8

1. OTHER MEMBERS OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM Prepared by: Bb. Jasmine Nikki M. Versoza

2. COMETS Dirty Snowballs Water, dust, carbon dioxide, ice, ammonia, methane and more

3. COMETS Orbit the sun Can lead to meteor showers on Earth Usually visible only at sunrise or sunset

4. COMETS We can see a number of comets with the naked eye when they pass close to the sun because their comas and tails reflect sunlight or even glow because of energy they absorb from the sun . However, most comets are too small or too faint to be seen without a telescope.

5. HEAD AND COMA Nucleus As a comet gets closer to the sun, the ice on the surface of the nucleus begins turning into gas, forming a cloud known as the coma .

6. WHY DOES THE COMA APPEARS BRIGHT? Reflection of the sunlight Emission of electromagnetic radiation

7. THE TAIL Can be 150 million kilometers in length Emitted from the nucleus Gas and dust

8. THE TAIL Gas tail Composed of ion blown out away from the sun Bluer, narrow and straight Solar wind Dust tail Dust particles Whiter, diffuse and curved Liberated from the nucleus

9. THE TAIL Radiation from the sun pushes dust particles away from the coma, forming a dust tail Charged particles from the sun convert some of the comet's gases into ions, forming an ion tail Comet tails always point away from the sun

10. SHORT PERIOD COMET and LONG PERIOD COMET CLASSIFICATION OF COMETS

11. SHORT PERIOD COMET Mildly elliptical orbits Cannot be seen by the naked eye

12. LONG PERIOD COMET Can be seen by the naked eye Orbits are more elongated Extended beyond Jupiter’s orbit

13. ASTEROID Minor planets Asteroid belt Ceres

14. BEGINNING OF ASTEROIDS They might have formed from the breakup of the planet that once occupied an orbit.

15. BEGINNING OF ASTEROIDS Several larger bodies once coexisted in close proximity and their collisions produced numerous smaller ones.

16. METEOROIDS Rocky‐metallic objects less than 100 meters Smaller bodies in between the planets Several hundred tons of meteoroids enter the Earth’s atmosphere each day

17. METEOROIDS While heated to incandescence by atmospheric friction during their passage through the atmosphere, they are termed  meteors . A fragment that survives to hit the ground is known as a  meteorite .

18. CLASSES OF METEORITES Chondrite Iron meteorite Carbonaceous chondrite

19. CLASSES OF METEORITES Chondrite Stony meteorites

20. CLASSES OF METEORITES Iron Meteorites Iron and nickel

21. CLASSES OF METEORITES Carbonaceous chondrites Organic compounds

22. ANTARCTIC METEORITES Finds - discovered by accident Falls - seen falling from the sky

23. TWO TYPES OF METEORS Sporadic orbital paths intersect that of Earth in random directions Meteor Shower the remains of old comets that have left lots of small particles and dust in a common orbit

24. METEORS Meteor craters Barringer Meteor Crater in Northern Arizona 25, 000 years old 4, 200 feet in diameter Depth of 6,000 feet

25. Barringer Meteor Crater in Northern Arizona