METEOROIDS AND COMET

Reporter:
Autida, Trexia B.
METEOROIDS
• Meteoroids are small bodies that travel through space. Meteoroids are smaller
than asteroids; most are smaller than the size of a pebble. Meteoroids have many
sources. Most meteoroids come from asteroids that are broken apart by impacts
with other asteroids. Other meteoroids come from the moon, from comets, and
from the planet Mars. 
When meteoroids enter the Earth's
atmosphere they are called
meteors.
Popularly called a "shooting star"

• If the meteors survive and strike

the surface of the Earth they are
called meteorites.
• micrometeorites - "space dust"
Sporadic Meteor
• These are the meteors that can be seen on any given night

• They are not associated with any particular meteor shower

• They come from random directions in the sky

A complete stone meteorite (L6 chondrite)
recovered in McLennan County, Texas,
only a few days after it fell to earth. This
meteorite was part of the spectacular
February 15, 2009 fireball filmed by a
cameraman in Austin. Note the black
fusion crust which is typical of freshly
fallen meteorites, and the numerous flow
lines—both created by the intense heat
generated by the fireball. 
 Some Meteor Showers
Name Date of Meteors / Parent
Maximum Hour
at Max
Quadrantids Jan. 4 110 -

Perseids Aug. 12 68 Comet 1862 III

Orionids Oct. 21 30 Comet Halley

Leonids Nov. 17 10 Comet P/Tempel-Tuttle

Geminids Dec. 14 58 3200 Phaethon

COMET
• Is an icy body that releases gas or dust. They are often compared to
dirty snowballs, though recent research has led some scientist to call
them snowy dirtballs.
• Astronomers think comets are leftovers from the gas, dust, ice and
rocks that initially formed the solar system about 4.6 billion years ago.

• Comet contain
- dust, ice, carbon dioxide, ammonia, methane, and more
Where do they come from?
Comets come from two places:  The Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud. 
Comet Structure • Nucleus
• 10 km “Dirty Snowball”
• potato-shaped
• 16 km to 8 km
• irregular and full of craterlike pits
• composed mainly of frozen water
• Coma
• Cloud of evaporated ices and ions
• may be 100,000 km in diameter
• Tail
• Always points away from Sun
• shaped by sunlight and solar wind
 Types of Comets
• Short-period comets
− originate in Kuiper Belt beyond Neptune
− Return to inner solar system every few years

• Long-period comets
− Originate in the Oort Cloud at the outer limits of the heliosphere
− Return orbits over decades to thousands of years

• Single Apparition
 • Some people claim they have been hit by meteorites as they
fall from the sky. This is extremely rare and many cases are
unproven.

• The first human we know to be hit by a meteorite is Ann

Hodges who lived in Alabama, USA. In 1954, a meteorite
The Barwell crashed through her ceiling and struck her after bouncing off
meteorite, the her radio. She was badly bruised and had a lucky escape as
biggest meteorite the meteorite weighed 4kg, about the same as a domestic cat.
to fall on Britain. • The oldest report is from 1911 in Egypt when a dog was said
to have been killed by a Martian meteorite.
• The Barwell meteorite was the biggest to fall over Britain. It
broke up and fell as a shower of stones over the Leicestershire
village of Barwell on Christmas eve, 1965.
• Many people think that a comet's tail is always following behind
it, but actually the coma, or tail, can either be behind the comet
or in front of it. Which way the tail is pointing depends on
where the Sun . That's right, the Sun's heat and radiation
produce a wind called the Solar Wind, as a comet gets close to
the Sun it begins to melt. The gas and dust that melt off are
blown away from the Sun by the solar winds. So if a comet is
traveling towards the Sun then the tail will follow behind, but if
the comet is traveling away from the Sun the tail will be in front
of the comet.
THANK YOU !!!