Meteor

Presented by: Vien Latigar

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 For you what is a Meteor?
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 Meteor
is a space rock—or meteoroid—that enters
Earth's atmosphere. As the space rock falls
toward Earth, the resistance—or drag—of the
air on the rock makes it extremely hot. What
we see is a "shooting star." That bright streak
is not actually the rock, but rather the
glowing hot air as the hot rock zips through
the atmosphere.

When Earth encounters many meteoroids at

once, we call it a meteor shower.
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 What is in a meteor?

● They consist mainly of iron-nickel

metal with small amounts of sulphide
and carbide minerals. During the decay
of radioactive elements in the early
history of the solar system, many
asteroids melted and the iron they
contained, being dense, sank to the
centre to form a metallic core.
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 Meteor

-Every year, the Earth is hit by about 6100 meteors large enough to
reach the ground, or about 17 every day, research has revealed. The
vast majority fall unnoticed, in uninhabited areas.
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 Why would Earth encounter many
meteoroids at once?

- comets, like Earth and the other planets, also orbit the sun.
Unlike the nearly circular orbits of the planets, the orbits of
comets are usually quite lop-sided.
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 Meteor

As a comet gets closer to the sun, some of its icy surface boils off, releasing
lots of particles of dust and rock. This comet debris gets strewn out along the
comet's path, especially in the inner solar system (where we live) as the sun's
heat boils off more and more ice and debris. Then, several times each year as
Earth makes its journey around the sun, its orbit crosses the orbit of a comet,
which means Earth smacks into a bunch of comet debris
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 But not to
worry!
The meteoroids are usually small, from dust
particle to boulder size. They are almost
always small enough to quickly burn up in
our atmosphere, so there's little chance any of
them will strike Earth's surface. But there is a
good chance that you can see a beautiful
shooting star show in the middle of the night!
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 But not to worry!
● In the case of a meteor shower, the ● Meteor showers are named for the
glowing streaks may appear anywhere in constellation where the meteors
the sky, but their "tails" all seem to point appear to be coming from. So, for
back to the same spot in the sky. That's example, the Orionids Meteor Shower,
because all the meteors are coming at us at which occurs in October each year,
the same angle, and as they get closer to appear to be originating near the
Earth the effect of perspective makes them constellation Orion the Hunter.
seem to get farther apart. It's like standing
in the middle of railroad tracks and seeing
how the two tracks come together in the
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distance.
 Plan ahead!

● Here are dates of major meteor showers.

Peak viewing times will vary by a day or
two each year. Keep in mind: If the
moon is full or near full, you may not
see many meteors. Some years are better
than others for numbers of meteors per
hour.
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 Plan ahead!
October
November
August
December -Orionids
and January
April -Perseids -Leonids
Quadrantids
-Lyrids
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 Thank
you!
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Any Questions?
 Quiz
● What is a Meteor? ● Why you should not ● When Earth encounters
worry about a meteor? many meteoroids at once
● A space rock that what do we call it?
● Because they’re small
enters Earth’s ● A meteor shower
athmosphere
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 Quiz
● What is in a meteor? ● How many Meteor enter the Earth
everyday?
●  iron-nickel metal with small
amounts of sulphide and carbide ● About 17 per day
minerals
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