Asteroids, Comets and Kuiper Belt Objects

- How are meteorites related to asteroids?

- Meteorites are pieces of asteroids - or sometimes of planets or of the moon
- Meteoroid: Is a small asteroid, in space
- Meteorite: Is a rock from space that has reached Earth’s surface
- Meteor: Is the bright tail of hot debris a rock, dust speck, or ice chunk gives off
while it’s moving through Earth’s atmosphere
- Most meteors burn up and never become meteorites
- Comet facts:
- Formed beyond the front line, comets are icy counterparts to asteroids
- The nucleus is a mass of ice and rock which when heated gives off the tail and
coma
- Most comets remain perpetually frozen in the outer solar system, where they
don’t have tails
- Only a few enter the inner solar system, where they can grow tails
- How did they get there?
- Kuiper belt comets formed in the Kuiper belt:
- A flat plane, aligned with the plane of planetary orbits, with comets (and
other objects) orbiting in the same direction as the planets
- Oort cloud comets were once closer to the Sun, but they were kicked out there
by gravitational interactions with Jovian planets:
- These comets have a spherical distribution, with orbits pointing randomly
in all directions
- Pluto: The exception
- Not a gas giant like the other outer planets
- Has a very elliptical, inclined orbit
- Has a thin nitrogen atmosphere that refreezes onto the surface as Pluto’s orbit
takes it farther from the Sun
- Much smaller than Mercury, and smaller than several moons, including Earth’s
moon
- Has a surprisingly large moon Charon, possibly formed by a huge collision of
another object with Pluto when the solar system was forming
- Has smaller moons, including Nix and Hydra
- Is Pluto a planet or a Kuiper Belt object?
- Pluto is well beyond Neptune, in the Kuiper belt
- Inclined orbit is typical of Kuiper Belt objects
- Composition is typical of Kuiper Belt objects, but not any of the other planets
- Kuiper Belt objects have similar orbital resonances with Neptune
- Kuiper Belt objects can have moons
- Kuiper Belt objects Triton (captured moon of Neptune) and Eris are even larger
than Pluto
- Even larger Kuiper Belt objects may be discovered in the future