HEAVENLY BODIES

Minor Member of the Solar System

COMET
Often compared to large, "dirty snowballs"
Composition
a. Frozen gases—ices of water, ammonia,
methane, CO2, CO
b. Rocky and metallic materials—cemented
by the ices
Frozen gases vaporize when near the Sun
a. Produces a glowing head called the coma
~ Jupiter diameter, with tiny nucleus inside
b. Some may develop a tail that points away
from Sun due to
1) Radiation pressure on dust
2) Solar wind pressure on ionized gases
3) this material is lost from comet
forever, reduced in size
c. gases recondense upon leaving Sun,
so no longer
spectacular
Origin Not well known—form at great
distance from Sun
a. Short-period comets < 200 years
Probably from Kuiper belt beyond Neptune
a) fairly circular orbits—close to plane of other planets
b) occasional collisions, perhaps perturbed orbits due to gravity of gas giants,
throw Kuiper belt objects into eccentric orbits that pass close to Sun.
Most famous short-period comet is Halley's comet
a) 76 year orbital period
i. tail 1 million miles long,
ii. could be seen in daytime 1910
b) Potato-shaped nucleus (16 km by 8 km)—fizzing, cratered per “Giotto” probe
in 1986
Hale-Bopp in 1997—spectacular!
a) had twin tail 1/5 of night sky—15 million miles long
b) 40 km diameter nucleus
b. Long-period comets
Period perhaps > 100,000 years
May originate in Oort Cloud
a) hypothetical region containing a combined mass of objects greater than mass
of Jupiter beyond Kuiper Belt
b) in spherical shell around solar system

Parts of a Comet
Coma
•A coma is the fuzzy, gaseous component of a comet’s head.
Nucleus
• Center (body) of the comet’s head. Composed of ice and rocky material. Most comets
ranges are from about 10 to 100 km in diameter
Tail
Dust Tail: the dust tail of a comet is composed of gases and tiny dust particles blown
away from the nucleus as the comet is heated. The dust tail is the most visible part of a
comet.
Ion Tail: the ion tail is a stream of ionized gases that are blown directly away from the
Sun as a result of the comet’s contact with the solar wind.
 Comets –pieces of rocky and metallic materials held together by frozen gases
 Most comets travel in elongated orbits, taking them past Pluto and take hundreds
of thousands of years to go around the sun.
 Coma–glowing head of a comet, caused by the solar energy vaporizing frozen
gases
 A small glowing nucleus with a diameter of only a few kilometers can sometimes
be detected within a coma.
  As comets approach the sun, some develop a tail that extends for millions of
kilometers.
 The tail of the comet always points away from the sun, this is accounted for by
the solar wind and radiation pressure

ACTIVITY # 1:
1. _______________are pieces of rocky and metallic materials held together by
frozen gases.
2. Circle the letter of the term for the glowing head of a comet formed when frozen
gases vaporize.
a. nucleus c. gas tail
b. coma d. dust tail
3. Select the appropriate letter in the figure that identifies each of the following parts
of a comet.
_______nucleus
_______tail of ionized gases
_______coma
_______tail of dust

4. When do comets develop tails?

______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
5. List the two regions from which comets originate.
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
6. Is the following sentence true or false? The nucleus of Halley’s comet is
spherical.
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
7. What is the tail of a comet made of and where does always it point?
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
METEORS
Meteoroids
- Called meteors when they enter Earth's atmosphere— “shooting star”
- A meteor shower occurs when Earth encounters a swarm of meteoroids
associated with a comet's path
- Meteoroids are referred to as meteorites when they are found on Earth
 - A meteor is the luminous phenomenon observed when a meteoroid enters
Earth’s atmosphere and burns up, popularly called a shooting star.
- A meteoroid is a small, solid particle that travels through space.
- A meteorite is any portion of a meteoroid that reaches Earth’s surface.

A. Types of meteorites classified by their composition

1) Irons—most commonly found
a) Mostly iron, 5-20% nickel
b) May give an idea as to the composition of Earth's core
c) Give an idea as to the age of the solar system—4.5 billion years
2) Stony—most common type
a) Silicate minerals with
b) Inclusions of other minerals
3) Stony-irons – mixtures
4) Carbonaceous chondrites—Rare
a) Simple amino acids
b) Other organic material
B. Meteor crater
- 1.2 km across, 170 m deep
- Significant amount of iron debris surrounding the crater
C. Manicouagan, Quebec structure is 200 million years old
D. Shoemaker-Levy 9 collision with Jupiter
Origins of Meteoroids
a. interplanetary debris not swept up on accretion of planetary bodies
 b. displaced objects from asteroid belt
c. remains of disintegrated comets
 Some meteoroids are as large as
asteroids
 Consequently, they vaporize before
reaching Earth’s surface
 Those that do enter Earth’s atmosphere
and burn up are called meteors
 The light that we see is caused by
friction between the particle and the air,
which produces heat

ACTIVITY #2:
Match each description with its object.
Description Object
_____1. Small, solid particle from space that a. meteor
reaches Earth’s surface. b. meteoroid
_____2. Small, solid particle from space that c. meteorite
burns up in Earth’s atmosphere.
_____3. Small, solid particle that travels through
space.
4. List the three sources of most meteoroids.
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
5. A(n) _________________ or display of frequent meteor sightings, can result when
Earth encounters a swarm of meteoroids.
6. Is the following sentence true or false? Meteorites are now the only extraterrestrial
materials scientists have to examine directly. _______________
7. What is larger, a meteoroid or an asteroid?
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
8. A meteoroid originates from three places:
(1) _________________________________________________________________
(2) _________________________________________________________________
(3) _________________________________________________________________
ASTERIODS
- Asteroids are rocky leftovers of planet formation.
- The largest is Ceres, diameter ~1,000 km.
- There are 150,000 in catalogs, and probably over a million with diameter >1 km.
- Small asteroids are more common than large asteroids.
- All the asteroids in the solar system wouldn’t add up to even a small terrestrial
planet
- An asteroid is a small, rocky body whose diameter can range from a few hundred
kilometers to less than a kilometer.
- Most asteroids lie between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. They have orbital
periods of three to six years.
- Most between Mars/Jupiter; some in Jupiter’s orbit, or ‘Near Earth’

- Small bodies – largest (Ceres) is about 620 miles in diameter—discovered in

1801
- Some have very eccentric orbits—those not in asteroid belt
- Irregular shapes—
Composition
a. 75% carbonaceous chondrite
b. 17% nickel-iron silicate
c. most others nickel-iron
Origin is uncertain—total mass is 1/2 of Moon
Many of the recent impacts on Moon and Earth were asteroids—
a. Meteor Crater—
1) 20,000 to 50,000 years ago
2) 10 meter diameter
 b. Tunguska event—1908
1) large explosion above Siberia of 60 m asteroid
2) no surface crater ever found
3) what if it was made of methane ice?
c. Near Misses
1) in 2004 with 30-meter asteroid (43,000 km from surface)
2) in 2002 with 70 m 461000 km (1.2 x Moon’s distance)
3) Asclepius March 29, 1989, 1000 m, 400,000 km (passed where Earth
was 6 hours earlier
Ceres: largest asteroid/smallest dwarf planet. Contains 1/3 of the belt's total mass.
The Internal structure of Cere is similar with Pluto:

Two groups of asteroids precede and follow

Jupiter on its orbit. They are called the
Trojan asteroids (named after Homeric
heroes).

Trojan asteroids are kept from straying by

the combined gravity of Sun and Jupiter.
Jupiter has some 1800 known Trojan
asteroids (1100 Greeks and 700 Trojans).
ACTIVITY #3:
Asteroids—Micro Planets
1. _____________________________
2. Diameter can range from __________________to_______________
3. Lie between the orbits of ________________________________
4. They have _____________________ of three to six years.
5. Composition similar to __________________
6. Is the following sentence true or false? Asteroids are small, rocky
bodies in space ______________.
7. Where are most asteroids found?
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
8. Asteroids cannot be the remains of a broken planet because they do not have
enough total _____________.
Reference/s:
https://people.wou.edu/~brownk/ES104/ES104.2008.1013.MinorsLightTools.pdf
http://newburyparkhighschool.net/stillwagon/geoscp/Geoscience%20Workbook
%20pdf/esgr234.pdf
http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~depoy/Astro161/Notes/class26a.pdf
https://www.chino.k12.ca.us/cms/lib/CA01902308/Centricity/Domain/3698/Asteroids
%20and%20Comets.pdf
http://newburyparkhighschool.net/wright/EarthScience/03_solar_system/03_notetakers_
MinorMembers_w_what_object_ws.pdf
https://www2.southeastern.edu/Academics/Faculty/rallain/easc101/page5/assets/chapte
r9.pdf
 St. Vincent College of Cabuyao
Mamatid, City of Cabuyao, Laguna
S.Y. 2020-2021

SCIENCE
8

TEACHER: Mary Mariette C. Escalante

STUDENT NAME : __________________________

SECTION: _________________________