REVIEWER IN SCIENCE 8

INTRODUCTION TO COMET, METEOR AND ASTEROID

Heavenly bodies – or celestial bodies; objects in space and are great part of the universe

Telescope – instrument used to see heavenly bodies

Three Minor Bodies: Comet, Meteor and Asteroid

Comets – cosmic snowballs of frozen gases, rock and dust that orbit the sun; formed during the birth of the solar system
4.6 billion years ago

Meteors – objects from space that enters the earth atmosphere as they are pulled by earth’s gravity; usually small and
burn up in the atmosphere; called shooting stars

If large enough, it can reach the ground and create a crater.

Asteroid – small, irregularly shaped rocks made up of metals or minerals; orbits the sun like planets but much smaller
than planets

COMET’S TALE

- Star like body in the night sky; heavenly bodies or celestial objects in the solar system
- Small body made up of ice, rock and cosmic dust
- Follows elliptical path around the sun
- When a comet passes near the sun, its temperature increases and then it releases gases

Exocomets – found outside the solar system

Nov 2013 – astronomers and enthusiasts in the Philippines hope to see comet ison but it did not happen

Comet Ison – comet of the century

Halley’s Comet – passes earth every 76 years; last is 1986 and will return in 2061

Comet Faye – appears every 7.55 years; appeared last May 2014

Comet Pons Winnecke – appears every 6.37 years; appeared last Jan 2015

Comet Tempel 1 – appears every 5.52 years; appeared last August 2016

Comet Comas Sola – appears every 8.8 years; appeared last Oct 2014

Comet Shoemaker Levy 4 – appears every 6.45 years; appeared last June 2016

Parts of a Comet

1. Nucleus – also called core; composed of ice, rock and metal; diameter measures approximately 100 meters to 10
kilometers; frozen and very small but it is where the comet’s mass is concentrated

Icy dirt balls - Nuclei with large quantity of dust

2. Coma – spherical cloud of dust and gas that surrounds the nucleus; can extend to up to 1 million km from the nucleus;
composed of water vapor, carbon dioxide, dust and ammonia

When coma reflects sunlight, the comets appear bright.

Coma and Nucleus – compose the comet’s head

3. Tail – has two portions: ion tail or plasma tail and the dust tail

a. Ion or Plasma tail – can measure up to 100 million km or longer; composed of charged gases

The solar wind causes the ion tail to face away from the sun. When it is approaching the sun, the ion tail is
trailing and when it is moving away from the sun, the ion tail is leading. When the comet is far from the sun,
the tail disappears.

b. Dust Tail – made up of very small dust particles; long and wide

The motion of the comet makes the dust tail appears slightly curved. It also disappears when the comet is far from the
sun.

4. Hydrogen envelope or hydrogen cloud – surrounds the coma; usually found between the two tails

When the comet approaches the sun, the hydrogen envelope becomes larger.

Stardust – spacecraft to study comet

Philae Landing on a Comet - robotic European Space Agency lander that accompanied the Rosetta spacecraft until it
separated to land on comet; Nov 2014

Orbital period of a comet – the time it takes for the comet to go around another body

Kuiper belt – comets that come from this belt are called short period comets or less than 200 years; near the orbit of
Neptune and continues beyond Pluto

Oort Cloud – comets from this are long period comets or more than 200 years

1 AU – 149.6 million km

The orbit of comet around the sun is highly elliptical. As it approaches the sun, its velocity increases rapidly and
decreases as it moves away from the sun

Sungrazers – comets that crash to the sun

Comet evaporates or disintegrate as it approaches the sun.

METEOR SHOWER

Meteoroids – either metallic or rocky; can go as fast as 42 km/second within Earth’s orbit

*Most meteor contains iron and nickel. They are categorized as iron, stone and stony-iron

Meteoros – Greek word where the word meteor came from which means high in the air

*Some people call meteor as shooting star or falling star.

Meteor shower – a phenomenon when many meteors appear from the same point

* A meteor appears to glow because of the tremendous velocity at which it strikes the Earth’s atmosphere.

The Colors of Meteors Depend on Two Factors:

1. The velocity of the meteor

2. The chemicals that compose the meteoroid

 a. Red – atmospheric nitrogen and oxygen
b. Orange yellow – sodium
c. Yellow – iron
d. Blue green – magnesium
e. Violet - calcium

Space dust or micrometeoroids – any object in space that is smaller than meteoroids

International Astronomical Union (IAU) – in 1995 defined meteoroid as being applicable to any natural solid object
moving in space and having a size between 100 micrometers and 10 meters

Fireballs – meteor than appears brighter than other meteors; there are about 500,000 fireballs every year

*Meteors appear in the atmosphere 76-100 km from earth’s surface

Mesosphere – coldest layer of the atmosphere

*Meteors are still visible for up to 120 km above earth’s surface. When they enter 50-95 km altitude, they disintegrate.
Meteors can be seen at night time. The glowing happens for about 1 second only.

When the meteor is in space, it is called meteoroid.

When the meteoroid enters the earth’s atmosphere, it is called meteor.

When the meteor makes an impact on earth’s surface and survives it, it is called meteorite.

Meteorite – solid debris that originates from asteroids and comets; can be small or very large

ASTEROIDS

Miguel Arnold Reyes – Philippine Science High School alumnus; placed second in the 2011 Intel International Science
and Engineering Fair or Intel ISEF in the USA; asteroid will be named after him

There are asteroids named after these Filipinos:

Ramon Kintanar, Josette Biyo, Edwin Aguirre, Imelda Joson, Allan Noriel Estrella, Jeric Valles Macalintal, Prem Valles
Fortran Rara, and Fr. Victor Badillo

Asteroid – largest minor body in the solar system; considered minor planets like those found in the inner system; some
asteroids are called planetoids; orbit around the sun elliptically; chunks of rocks; diameter ranges 10 meters – 530 km

Vesta – one of the largest asteroids, has a diameter that ranges 530 km

Asteroids do not have regular shapes.

951 Gaspra – example of irregularly shaped asteroid

Asteroid belt – located between the orbit of Mars and Jupiter; holds more than 200 asteroids larger than 100 km in
diameter

Trojans – asteroids beyond the asteroid belt and along the Jupiter’s orbit

Amor, Apollo, Aten – near the earth asteroids; orbit within the inner solar system

Asteroids – said to be remnants of the formation of the solar system for about 4.6 million years ago; asteroids have not
changed throughout the years

4 Vesta – an asteroid that can be seen in the night sky even without using telescope
Ceres - largest body in the asteroid belt; first asteroid discovered by Giuseppe Piazzi on Jan 1, 1801

European Space Agency (ESA) – scientists working in here detected water vapor on Ceres in January 2014

If you add up the masses of asteroids, the total is even less than the mass of earth’s moon

They are small but they can spell danger. There will be more asteroids that will hit the earth.

Alvarez hypothesis – one of the most plausible hypothesis about the extinction of dinosaurs that was proposed by Luis
Alvarez; states that large asteroid strucked the earth millions of years ago

Chelyabinsk, Russia – on Feb 15, 2013 an asteroid that measures 20 m wide caused injury to about 1200 people

1991 BA – smallest asteroid ever discovered; diameter is 6m

4 Vesta – large asteroid with a giant crater having a diameter measuring 460 km

Dust particles cover the surface of most asteroids. Asteroids also rotate just like planets.

Binary asteroids – composed of two asteroids of the same size that orbit each other

Phobos and Deimos – were once asteroids but they are now natural satellites or moon of Mars

The very low temperature of an asteroid’s surface makes the asteroid uninhabitable. The average temperature of an
asteroid’s surface is 73˚ Celsius. There are asteroids that have rings too.