Chapter 9

• We find most of the asteroids in the asteroid belt between Mars and
Jupiter because that is where rocky plenetesimals could survive for
billions of years
• There are large gaps in the asteroid recurrence called Kirkwood gaps, due
to periods and gravity
• The gaps occur because of orbital periods that bear special and simple
relationship to jupiter
• A major collision occurs somewhere in the asteroid belt every hundred
thousand years due to jupiters gravity
• Meteor- flash of light due to a particle entering our atmosphere
• Meteorite- the rocks big enough to make it to Earth
• Types of meteorites
• Primitive- simple mixtures of rock and metal sometimes also
containing carbon compounds and small amounts of water and they
are as old as our solar system
• Processed - pieces of large asteroids that like the terrestrial worlds
underwent differentiation into core mantle crust structure, some are
made of iron others are rocky and they are slightly younger than
primitive ones
• Comets are very similar to asteroids and are known to be icy and have a
long tail
• Halley's comet is the most know and it orbits the Sun every 76 years
• Comets are made of an icy nucleus, a coma of gas and dust surrounding
it, and a plsma tail consists of gas escaping from the coma, the dust tail is
the dust size particles escaping the coma
• Comet dust sprinkled throughout our solar system is viewed by us as a
meteor shower.
• Oort Cloud- a collection of many individual comets. Comets coming from
as far out as a quarter of the way to the nearest star
• Ring of orbits the sun beyond neptune- Kuiper belt
• We have learned a lot about Pluto because of its relatively large moon
Charon
• Remember that we can observe an objects mass only when we
observe its gravitational effect on other objects
• Shoemaker-Levy 9 a huge impact on Jupiter. Left scars on jupiter large
than earth itself
• Its extremely likely that an impact killed the dinosaurs
• There is an impact that directly coincides with the death of the dinosaurs
• Also there have been large impacts since then- one was in Tunguska
Siberia, it is estimated to have released the energy of several atomic
bombs.
• Carancas Peru- had a meteorite 1-2 meters wide strike in 2007