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Solar System Debris - Report
Solar System Debris - Report
DEBRIS
Prepared By:
Hildas
Apollo Asteroids
• The Apollo asteroids are the
scary ones.
–They’re the ones that pass
across Earth’s orbit.
oStill, they hit the Earth
once every 10,000 years
on average.
• They may be dead comets. http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmo
s/a/apollo+asteroids
NEAR-EARTH
ASTEROIDS
• The Apollo asteroids are just the largest of a
few groups of NEAs and one of two groups of
Earth-crossing asteroids.
• There are also the Atens and the Amors,
along with IEOs (Inner Earth Objects) that
don’t cross Earth’s orbit.
Near-Earth Asteroids
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/neo/groups.html
Origin of the Asteroids
Are they the remains of a smashed planet?
http://www.philipmetzger.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/asteroid-and-meteorite-types.jpg
A meteoroid is a piece of
rocky space debris orbiting
the Sun at typically 20 - 40
meteoroid km/s, some of which are
on a collision course with
the Earth.
A meteor is the fireball seen in the sky
when a meteoroid collides with the
Earth’s atmosphere.
A meteorite is the
remnant of a
meteoroid
which has
survived the
fireball to impact
on the Earth’s
surface.
So where do meteoroids come from?
■ That’s…kinda accurate.
A comet is a dusty
chunk of ice, a dirty
snowball, that
moves in a highly
elliptical orbit about
the Sun. When
passing near the
Sun, it partially
vaporizes.
■ As comet’s ices are
vaporized, gases and dust
particles are liberated to
glow as coma around the
nucleus. The nucleus of a
comet is made of dark
carbon compounds.
■ A comet have a hydrogen
envelope visible in
ultraviolet light.
■ Dust tail and ion tail is
form by radiation pressure
and solar wind.
■ Dust tail is produced by
photons interacting with
matter.
■ Ion tail is pushed by
magnetic force over
charged particles.
■Comets
originate
either from
the Kuiper
belt or from
the Oort
cloud in near
interstellar
space.
Asteroid belt Kuiper belt
http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/files/2013/10/Kuiperbelt-1.jpg
KUIPER BELT
• is a shell of icy
objects orbiting
very far from the
Sun.
Oort Cloud