Aurora Borealis Solar Wind Why do we care

Aurora Borealis

Solar Wind

Why do we care about flying objects in Space? • Small bodies in the solar system may impact Earth!!!

Comets

Pg. 500 -501 • • What are Comets? Small body of ice, rock and dust Contains Nucleus, and two tails Nucleus Size: 1 km – 100 km in diameter Very elliptical orbits – Come from the Kuiper Belt or Oort Cloud • Two types of Comet tails – Ion tail – blue in color, faces away from sun – Dust tail – ice melts and changes to gas, blown by the solar wind

Comet Orbit

Pg. 502 -503 What are Asteroids? • Small rocky bodies that orbit the sun • Size: 1 m – 1000 km in diameter • Located between Mars and Jupiter in the asteroid belt • Two types of Asteroids – Stone – Metal

Pg. 503 -504 Meteors & Meteorites • Meteors = streak of light…NOT shooting stars • Meteorites have enough material to make it to the surface of the earth • 3 Types of Meteorites – Stony – Metallic Easiest to find on earth – Stony-iron Least common on earth

Meteorites!!!

Micro Meteorites

Differences… • Asteroids orbit sun between Mars and Jupiter • Comets are small bodies of ice, rock and dust that have tails • Meteroids : other stuff in space that are not Comets or Asteroids – Meteors are dust and debris from asteroids, meteroids, and comets • Meteorites are meteors that reach Earth