Minor Members of the Solar System• In addition to the planets, there

are many other objects in our solar system

• Asteroids -

• small rocky bodies ranging in size from a grain of sand to 1000’s of km across.

• most orbit the sun in the “Astroid Belt” - an area between Mars and Jupiter

• some have irregular orbits that even bring them close to earth

Minor Members of the Solar System

• Comets -

• pieces of rocky and metallic materials held together by frozen gases

• gases may be water, methane, ammonia, carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide.

• most comets travel in elliptical orbits around the sun

• as a comet approaches the sun, these ices vaporize producing the coma and possibly a tail.

Minor Members of the Solar System

• Comets usually come from two main areas of the outer solar system -

• Kuiper Belt -

• location of comets with short orbital periods

• Oort Cloud -

• spherical area around the solar system

• contains comets which are distributed in all directions

Minor Members of the Solar System• Meteoroids - small solid

particle traveling through space

• Come from -

1. Extra material not used to create the planets and moons

2. Material from the astroid belt

3. Solid remains of old comets

Minor Members of the Solar System

• Meteor - a meteoroid that has entered and burned up in Earth’s atmosphere

• Meteorite - a meteoroid that reaches Earth’s surface.