Comets, Asteroids and Meteors

Oh my!

Are you ready? Are you ready to

learn all about the craziness
that are these celestial
objects?!

Great! Let’s go!

 Comets
 A small clump of ice and dust with an extremely
elliptical (oval) orbit around the Sun.
 As it nears the sun on it’s orbit, the ice
sublimates (goes straight from a solid to a gas)
and forms the coma and tail.
 The comet becomes visible because the gas
gets into an excited state and lights up (kind of
like neon lights)
 Comets usually come from the Oort Cloud which
is beyond our Solar System, and a few from
Kuiper Belt which is just beyond Neptune’s orbit.
 is a relatively small solar system
body that orbits the Sun. When close
enough to the Sun they display a
visible coma (a fuzzy outline or
atmosphere due to solar radiation)
and sometimes a tail.
 Are small cosmic bodies that have an
ellipsoidal orbit around the sun
 Composed of rock, dust, ice, and frozen
gasses
 Comets do not become spherical
because of their low mass and gravity
 Have irregular shapes because of low
mass and gravity
 Range from 100 meters to 40 kilometers
across
 COMETS

• Comets are actually dark and invisible. When

a comet is near the sun, it becomes visible
because tails are formed
• When a comet is approaching the sun, its ion
tail is behind it but when it is moving away
from the sun, its ion tail goes ahead of it.
 Gasses found on comets include Carbon
Monoxide and Dioxide, Ammonia,
Methane, Ethanol, and Ethane, etc
Comet Tails
 As comets approach sun, solar radiation
causes particles from the comet to
dissipate, and peel off of comet leaving
trail of dust
 Escaping gas and dust create quasi-
atmosphere called coma
 Comet Tails

 Solar Winds and Radiation exert pressure

on atmosphere causing tail to form
 Tail and Coma make comet visible to
Earth
 Comas and tails vary in size
 Tails can be up to 150 million km in length
 Comas can be larger than planets
 Comet tails leave trails of debris which
can contribute to meteor showers
Where do they come
from?
Comets come from two
places: The Kuiper Belt and the
Oort Cloud. Imagine a place far,
far away at the very edge of
the Solar System. A place
where millions of comets can
be seen swishing around in
every direction. These icy
comets are orbiting the Sun
in two different places, both
of which are very distant.
 Orbit Patterns/Classifications of Comets

 Have ellipsoidal orbits which come

close to sun for periods of time,
and extend outward towards outer
planets
 Classified by length of orbits
 Orbit Classifications
 Short Period Comets: have orbits less
than 200 years and are divided into two
subclasses
 Subclasses: Jupiter Family: has orbit
periods of less than twenty years. Halley
Family has orbits from 20-200 years
 Long Period Comets: have orbit periods
ranging from two hundred to several
thousand years, and remain gravitationally
bound to the sun, and therefore never go
out of orbit
 Single Apparition Comets: Have long
orbits periods, but these periods change due
to gravitational pull by outer planets
 All comet orbits are affected by the gravity of
the giant planets they orbit by, and are
constantly subject to change.
 Comets can leave the solar system if they
travel fast enough
 Other exhaust themselves, and disintegrate,
but others collide with celestial objects.
 COMETS
and its parts
Comet

 3 parts:
 Nucleus
 Coma
 Tail: always points
away from sun

Nucleus and coma

make up the head .
Comet
 Famous comet.
 A famous comet is hale-bopp. It
was discovered in July 23, 1995 .
The comet is about 25 miles
across and it has the longest time
visible by the naked eye 19
months.
 It was founded by Thomas Bopp
an amateur astronomer that is a
active observer. Hale-bopp was
the first comet he ever found.
 Halley’s Comet

• The most famous comet of the 20th

Century
• Only known short- period comet
• It take 75-79 years
*Long-period to200
comets take orbit themillions
to hundred sun. of
years to complete their orbit around the Sun.
Asteroids

 A rocky object revolving around the sun

 It is smaller than a planet (this is what
makes it different from terrestrial/rocky
planets).
 They are found between the orbits of
Mars and Jupiter in the Asteroid Belt!
 are small solar system bodies that orbit
the Sun. Made of rock and metal, they
can also contain organic compounds.
Asteroids are similar to comets but do
not have a visible coma (fuzzy outline
and tail) like comets do.
 is a small rocky object that is in the
solar system.
 Many of the asteroids in the solar
system in orbiting the sun between
Mars and Jupiter called the asteroid
belt.
 are rocky fragments left over from the
formation of the solar system about 4.6
billion years ago
 Are small bodies that orbit the sun
 Millions of asteroids in the solar system
 Though to be remnants of planetismals
which are small bodies that weren’t
large enough to grow into planets
 Many of the asteroids in the solar
system are found in the asteroid belt
 Makeup of Asteroids

 Several different types of asteroids and

within this classes of asteroids as far as
physical makeup goes
 Jupiter Trojans
 Near-Earth Asteroids
 C-type-makeup that consists mainly of
carbon
 S-type-Mostly rock and stone
 M-type-metallic
 Groups of Asteroids
 Asteroid Belt- Contains roughly 1.5 million
asteroids with a diameter larger than 1 km,
and several million more that are smaller
than that
 Trojan Asteroids share orbit with a moon,
or orbit very close to a planet. Many of these
Trojans can be found near Jupiter so they
have the name “Jupiter Trojans.”
 Near-Earth Asteroids: pass close to Earth
in their orbits
Asteroid Belt
 Asteroid Belt
The region
between the
orbits of Mars
and Jupiter,
where many
asteroids are
found.
 Kuiper Belt
& Oort cloud
Famous Asteroid.
 Meteors? Meteorites? Meteoroids? What’s
the difference?!?!
 The Quick Trick:
 - “oids” are outside the atmosphere, - “ites”
are inside it, and – “ors” are in between.
 Meteoroids outside atmosphere
( meteoroids are in the void of space)
 Meteorites on Earth’s surface ( meteorites
are in the earth tight)
 Meteors are in-between

Meteoroids Meteors Meteorites

 Meteoroid
 Is a small rocky, metallic object
that orbits the sun and stays in
the night sky.
 When the meteoroid intersected
the earths orbit it is called a
meteor. When it goes past the
atmosphere it is called at
meteorite.
 is a small rock or particle of debris
in our solar system. They range in
size from dust to around 10 metres
in diameter (larger objects are
usually referred to as asteroids).
 a chunk of rock or dust in space
 is a sand to bolder sized particle in the solar
system. Its visible path of light is called a
Meteor, and if a meteroid falling to Earth
survives the impact, it is called a
meterite.”(quoted from Wikipedia).
 have very different physical makeups and can
range from being 25% ice to metallic balls that
are very dense
 Also vary in size from being less than 1 meter in
length to being 50 meters in length
 All orbit the sun, but with varying speeds
 A meteoroid that burns up as it
passes through the Earth’s
atmosphere is known as a
meteor. If you’ve ever looked up
at the sky at night and seen a
streak of light or ‘shooting star’
what you are actually seeing is a
meteor.
 Meteors

 A meteor is a small ball of

light that appears in the night
sky briefly
 Some wish a pone the meteor
and make a wish.
 The meteoroid when it falls
down into the earth
atmosphere it burns up into a
meteor.
 Occur most often in Mesophere
 Several million daily occurences
 Created because of atmospheric pressure
on meteroid during entry to Earth
 This creates a trail of gases and rocks
which create the visible meteor that one
may see
 Meteors(oids/ites)
 Are solid, interplanetary particles passing
through Earth’s atmosphere.
 These solid objects (usually also rocky) are
usually headed towards earth. Depending on
their specific location (outside the
atmosphere, inside the atmosphere or on the
ground) it has a different name.
 a streak of light in the sky produced by the
burning of a meteoroid in Earth’s
atmosphere
• A meteor shower is a light
phenomenon caused by
fragments left by a comet
as they orbit the sun.
When the earth orbits the
sun and passes through
the comet fragments, a
streak of light is
produced.
Meteorite A meteorite is a small chunk of
metal or rock that falls down to
earth h or any other planet.
 An iron meteorite (of the ataxtite
group) weighing some 60,000 kg
is the largest meteorite ever
found. It still lies where it was
found in 1920 at Hoba Farm, near
Grootfontein, Namibia.
Surprisingly, there is no crater,
because the meteorite entered
the atmosphere at a long,
shallow angle and was slowed
down by the atmospheric drag.
 TYPES OF METEORITES:
 Stony Meteorite
Stony meteorites, the
most common type of
meteorite, are generally
composed of approximately
75 – 90% silicon-based
minerals, 10 – 25% nickel-iron
alloy, and trace amounts of
iron sulfide.
 Stony-iron meteorite
Stony-iron meteorites contain
approximately even amounts of silicates and
nickel-iron alloy
 Iron meteorite
Most iron meteorites
likely originated in the cores of
large asteroids, and are
composed almost entirely of
nickel-iron alloy, which is also a
primary component of the
Earth's core.
What meteorites are
and where they come
from?
Meteorites are chunks of rocks
or metal that fall from space.
They are named after the place
they are found. Most
meteorites are very small but
they can be huge and weigh
more than a car.
Where in space are
they from?
Most meteorites come from the
asteroid belt. This is a region
Difference of Meteors, Meteoroids, and
Meteorite
 There is no really different between the
Meteors, Meteoroids and the Meteorite. It is a
cycle of the balls of rock. It starts of as the
Meteoroid and falls down to the atmosphere
and becomes a Meteor. If Meteor get past the
atmosphere it becomes the Meteorite, if it
doesn’t past the atmosphere it stays as the
Meteors and turns into the shooting star.
• A meteoroid usually all burns up when it
enters Earth’s atmosphere.
• A meteor is a light phenomenon or a
streak of light that occurs when a
meteoroid burns up as it enters the
Earth’s atmosphere.
• When a fragment from the meteoroid
survives and makes it to the ground, this
space rock fragment is now called a
meteorite.
 Comets vs. Meteors
(what’s the difference?)
 If both look like bright streaks of light in the sky,
how can you tell the difference?
 Comets seemingly hang motionless in the sky
whereas meteors quickly streak across the sky
(shooting star) and are only seen for a fraction
of a second
 Comets are millions of miles away, meteors are
in our atmosphere.
 Comets are orbiting the sun, Meteors are
headed towards the Earth’s surface.
 What is the
difference between
an asteroid, comet,
meteoroid, meteor
and meteorite?
Asteroid: A relatively small, inactive
body, composed of rock,
carbon or metal, which is
orbiting the Sun.

Comet: A relatively small, sometimes

active object, which is
composed of dirt and ices.
Comets are characterized by
dust and gas tails when in
proximity to the Sun. Far from
the Sun it is difficult to
distinguish an asteroid from a
comet.

Meteoroid: A small particle from an

asteroid or comet orbiting he
Sun.

A meteoroid that is observed as

 The Life of a Meteor…

Please draw something

similar to the image on
the right in your notes
sheet.
Atmosphere
At each stage, write a
short description of what
is happening that is
making it “change” and
label each stage
(meteor, meteoroid,
meteorite).
Earth’s Surface