Interplanetary Bodies

Asteroids

• Solid bodies having no atmosphere

• Have well determined orbits• More than 2000 in our solar

system

Asteroids

Other info:

• Located mostly between Mars and Jupiter

• Can be 600 miles in diameter or as small as a pebble

• All together, the asteroid pieces wouldn’t equal a planet

• The largest asteroid by far is 1 Ceres. It is 933 km in diameter and contains about 25% of the mass of all the asteroids combined

Meteoroids

• Chunks of matter that cross paths of the planets

• May hit earth’s atmosphere and burn up. The streaks of light are called meteors. Any chunk that strikes earth is called a meteorite.

Meteorite

Meteoroids

• Also called “shooting stars”• In 1992 a football sized meteorite

fell through the trunk of a car in Peekskill, NY

Meteor Showers

Impact Craters

• Over 120 impact craters and basins have been found on earth

• Meteor Crater in Arizona formed nearly 50,000 yrs. Ago is 570 feet deep is one of the largest

Chicxulub Basin

• Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula• 190 miles wide• Formed when a meteor struck

earth about 65 million years ago

Yucatan Peninsula

Comets

• Move in very elliptical orbits around the sun

• Have a solid nucleus covered in ice that produces a cloud that trails behind it as it goes around the sun

• Tail always points away from the sun

Structure of a Comet

Comets

• A comet may be visible for weeks at a time

• Ericke’s Comet returns every 33 yrs.• Halley’s Comet returns every 76 yrs.

Elliptical Orbit of a Comet

West Comet

West Comet

Halley’s Comet