Comets, Asteroids, and Meteoroids

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Comets, Asteroids,and Meteoroids

• Section 20.5

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Comets

• Loose collections of ice, dust, and small rocky
  particles whose orbits are usually very long,
  narrow ellipses
• Comet head is made of a solid inner core
  (nucleus) and a fuzzy outer layer (coma)

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Comets

• The coma forms when gases are released due to
  getting close to the sun
• A comets tail is caused by gases streaming away
  from the sun

Head
Tail
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Comets

• Comets originate from the Kuiper belt (outside of
  Neptune) or the Oort cloud (surrounds the solar
  system)

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Asteroids

• Rocky objects that are too small and numerous to
  be considered planets
• Most orbit between Mars and Jupiter (asteroid
  belt)
• One hit Earth 65
• million years ago
• One could hit again

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Meteors

• Meteoroid chunk of rock or dust in space
• Meteor a meteoroid that is burning up in
• Earths atmosphere
• Meteorite a meteor that doesnt
• completely burn up and hits the
• ground

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