Asteroids

On-line Lesson
 On-line Lesson: Asteroids

What are they?

• Asteroids are solid pieces of rock that have been
left around the Solar System from the time when
the planets formed.
• They range in size from one metre ( or perhaps
smaller ) up to 1000 km.
• Asteroids are quite irregular in shape and
therefore the light they reflect from
the Sun fluctuates as they move
and rotate.
 On-line Lesson: Asteroids

What do they look like ?

• We have never seen any asteroids close up
but in a telescope they look like a tiny point
of light.
• Unlike comets, they
have no cloud of diffuse
light around them.

• Because they are very cold they don’t emit much

radiation themselves but they can be seen by
very sensitive Infra-Red telescopes such as ISO.
 On-line Lesson: Asteroids

• Asteroids are very irregular in shape as

these pictures taken from a spacecraft
nearby show.

• They are quite similar to small

planets or moons like Phobos
 On-line Lesson: Asteroids

How Many Are There?

• Recent surveys using Infra-Red telescopes indicates
that in the main Asteroid belt around the Sun there are
at least 1.1 million asteroids larger than 1 km.
On-line Lesson: Asteroids

Different types
By studying both the
brightness and the
reflectivity of certain
colours it becomes
clear that asteroids
fall into several
different groups.
M are believed to be
metallic
C are thought to be
carbonaecous
S contain more
silicates
 On-line Lesson: Asteroids

Where are they?

• Asteroids circle around the
Sun in orbits that trace their
origins in the Solar System.
• The orbits of asteroids are
more or less circular and they
have orbital periods of three to
six years.
• Not all orbits around the Sun
are populated with asteroids
because the motion of the
main planets interferes with
some orbits and makes them
unstable for asteroids.
• The majority of asteroids are in
the Asteroid Belt with
distances from the Sun
between 2.2 and 3.2
astronomical units.
 On-line Lesson: Asteroids

Detection
• Looking for asteroids in a telescope requires a
search for objects which move from one night to the
next and are point
like in appearance.

• To be sure that it is an
asteroid rather than a
planet or comet, enough
observations must be
taken to be able to
measure the mathematical parameters of the orbit.
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Are Asteroids Safe?

• Asteroids pass through the Solar System in their
orbits, which can change with time as they are
affected by passing planets.

• If an asteroid was deflected from its orbit onto a path

that intersected that of the Earth, the results would be
very serious.

• An object 100km across hitting the Earth at 20

km/sec would could immense damage.
 On-line Lesson: Asteroids

Have they hit us before ?

Many scientists
believe that asteroids
have hit the Earth
many times
in its history.

Artists impression of a
giant asteroid impact
 On-line Lesson: Asteroids

• Because the effect of such a collision would be so dramatic,

the signs of this can be seen in the geological record
sometimes as huge craters.

• An event of this kind may

have caused the
atmospheric and climatic
disturbance which led to
the destruction of the
dinosaurs.