ASTEROIDS – PLANETARY BUILDING ROCKS

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❖ Asteroids are fragments of rocky materials with similar composition as the outer
layers of the terrestrial planets. Their size is greater than 100 meter in diameter.

Asteroid Belt
❖ The majority of known asteroid are found within and between the orbits of
Mars and Jupiter.
❖ This region, which is occupied by numerous asteroids, contains enough
material to form another rocky planet.
Trojans
❖ These are asteroids that share an
orbit with a large planet or moon.
❖ The most significant asteroids are
the Jupiter Trojans, so called
because they share the same orbit
as the planet Jupiter.

Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs)

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❖ The asteroids that are mostly watched

are near earth asteroids or NEAs
because there is a real possibility of one
of them colliding with Earth since their
orbits pass close to that of Earth.
❖ - There are 7075 NEAs already found.
❖ - Asteroids that impact with Earth can
cause a lot of damage. A large one
falling in the sea may generate large
waves similar to a tsunami.

❖ - An asteroid impact is most probably the cause of Cretaceous Palaeogene

extinction in which dinosaurs became extinct.
❖ - Moreover, their impact can shake the Earth and create a large crater,
destroying anything in its path.
❖ - One of the best known collisions occurred in the Russian locality of Tunguska
in 1908.

Tunguska Event of 1908

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 Tunguska Event of 1908
❖ - The Tunguska event, as it is known was a massive explosion that caused the
destruction of an estimated 80 million trees in an area of more than 2000 square
kilometres.
❖ - The explosive force is estimated to have been 1000 times than that of the atomic
bomb dropped in Hiroshima.

Naming of Asteroids
❖ Like planets, asteroids are given names by
astronomers.
❖ The first asteroid was discovered in 1801 after
the Roman goddess of agriculture, Ceres.
❖ Three other planets were subsequently
found and given the names of gods: Pallas,
Juno and Vesta.

❖ Subsequently astronomers adopted a system of giving them a number in the

order of their discovery to which a name is appended.
Subsequently astronomers adopted a system of giv ing tem a number in the order of their discovery to whic h a name is appended.

- Examples of these asteroids are as follows:

❖ Examples of these asteroids are as follows: 1)

2)
8 Flora

17 Thetis

1. 8 Flora 3) 2001 Einstein

2. 17 Thetis
4) 5020 Asimov

3. 2001 Einstein
4. 5020 Asimov

Planetoids
❖ Asteroids that are big enough so that a
spaceship can land on them and people
can walk on its surface are referred to as
planetoids.
❖ They are believed to be rich in iron, nickel
and other metals. Scientist and engineers
have raised the prospect of asteroid
mining.
Answer the following questions below. Write your answers on your notebook or module. ☺

Compare an asteroid and a planet. List three similarities and three differences.

Similarities Difference

COMETS – OCCASIONAL VISITORS

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❖ Unlike meteors which strike down on Earth very frequently, comets may be
considered occasional visitors from space.
❖ They are visible to the naked eye only periodically as they travel around the sun
in very eccentric orbits.
❖
 Eccentric Orbit Halley’s Comet
❖ The most famous, Halley’s Comet, appears only once every 75 to 76 years. It
appeared last 1986 and is predicted to appear again in 2061.
❖ Before their nature was fully understood, people in many societies around the
world thought they were omens of war, diseases, or death of kings or leaders.
❖
❖ Appearance of comets is a natural phenomenon, which astronomers can
calculate with great accuracy.
❖ Comets differ from meteoroids and asteroids not only in their composition but also
in their range in size.
❖ While meteoroids and asteroids are essentially pieces of rocks, comets are often
described as “dirty snowballs”, or dusty balls of ice, although some comets may
have a rocky nucleus.

Inside the Comet

❖ Comets remain in the vacuum of space in
a frozen state. As a ball of ice, they emit no
light of their own, so they are not easily
visible, except if close enough to reflect
light from the sun. As they get closer to the
sun, the frozen material starts to vaporize.

❖ The released dust and gas form a huge,

extremely unstable atmosphere around
the comet called coma, from which the
comet is derived.
 Comets Colliding with Planets
❖ Comets do not last or remain within the solar system forever. Those that attain very
high velocity are “ejected” from the solar system after interacting with a large planet.
❖ Others exhaust all their volatile materials leaving only the rocky nucleus.
❖ Without gases to form a coma, it becomes more of an asteroid.

❖ July 1994
❖ When this comet broke up into
pieces and collided with Jupiter.
Astronomers using powerful
telescopes observed 21 impacts
after the comet was pulled apart by
the gravitational force of Jupiter.
❖ The largest collision resulted in a
Comet Shoemaker Levy 9 colliding with Jupiter fireball that rose more than 3000km
that was almost the size of Earth.

Naming of Comets
❖ Comets are named after the person who discovered them.
Examples:
Halley’s Comet named after Sir Edmond Halley

❖ Comets that were visible in the Philippines:

Comet Ikeya Seki Comet Hyakutake
Comet Kohoutek Comet McNaught and Holmes
Comet West
Answer the following questions below. Write your answers on your notebook or module. ☺

1. Why does it take Halley’s Comet so many years to resurface?

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2. What superstitions are associated with comets? Cite three examples.

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METEOROIDS – SPACE ROCKS

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❖ Meteoroids are also fragments of rocky

materials with similar composition as the
terrestrial planets except that their diameter is
smaller than 100 meter.
❖ Very tiny meteoroids are known as
micrometeoroids which may also be referred
to as cosmic dust.
❖ Once a meteoroids enters the Earth’s atmosphere, it heats up due to friction with
the atmosphere partially disintegrates and produces a tail of debris that glows
because of heat.
❖ There are millions of such occurrences everyday but most of them go unnoticed
except at night.
❖ They became visible when they are about the size of a marble.
❖ Their glowing tail is known as meteor or colloquially as shooting stars, falling stars
or bulalakaw.

❖ Meteors that appear to glow brighter that planets are called fireballs.

❖ When fireballs explode, they are called bolides.

❖ A meteoroid that manages to reach Earth’s surface as a solid object is called

meteorite.

Types of Meteorites
1. Most Common
◦ stony in nature and consist of mainly silicates with some iron and nickel.
2. Less Common
◦ iron nickel type and have a higher density.
3. Stony Iron
◦ consists of stone material, iron and nickel.
 Meteorites in PH
❖ One of the largest meteorite ever
recorded from the Philippines is the
Bondoc Meteorite named after the
Bondoc Peninsula within the province of
Quezon.
❖ The piece recovered has a mass of
888.6kg almost one metric ton.
❖ - It took more than three years to bring
the meteorite to Manila.

Answer the following questions below. Write your answers on your notebook or module. ☺

1. Differentiate meteorite, meteoroid and meteors.

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2. How are asteroids and meteoroids similar and are they different?
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REFERENCE
▪ Exploring Life through Science Series – Second Edition
(Phoenix Publication – 2018)