Science | Minor Members of The Solar System – Notes

Astronomy

I. TOPIC: MINOR MEMBERS OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM

II. GOALS:
1. What are the minor members of the solar system?
2. Why are they called minor members of the solar system?
3. Where did they come from?
4. What materials they composed?
5. What are the minor planets? Why are they called minor planets?

III. TERMINOLOGIES:
1. Volatiles - are that group of chemical elements and chemical compounds with low boiling
points that are associated with a planet's or moon's crust and/or atmosphere.
2. Planetesimals are solid objects thought to exist in protoplanetary disks and in debris disks.
3. Scattered disc (or scattered disk) is a distant region of the Solar System that is sparsely
populated by icy minor planets, a subset of the broader family of trans-Neptunian objects.
4. Centaurs are an unstable orbital class of minor planets that behave with characteristics of both
asteroids and comets.
5. Meteor shower is a celestial event in which a number of meteors are observed to radiate from
one point in the night sky.
6. Micrometeoroid is a tiny meteoroid; a small particle of rock in space, usually weighing less
than a gram.

IV. CONCEPTS/ LAW:

1. Law of universal gravitation

Comets necessarily obey the same physical laws as every other object. They move
according to the basic laws of motion and of universal gravitation discovered by Newton in the
17th century (ignoring very small relativistic corrections). If one considers only two bodies --
either the Sun and a planet, or the Sun and a comet -- the smaller body appears to follow an
elliptical path or orbit about the Sun, which is at one focus of the ellipse. The geometrical
constants which fully define the shape of the ellipse are the semimajor axis a and the
eccentricity e (see Figure 2). The semi minor axis b is related to those two quantities by the
equation b = a(1 - e2). The focus is located a distance away from the center of the ellipse. Three
further constants are required if one wishes to describe the orientation of the ellipse in space
relative to some coordinate system, and a fourth quantity is required if one wishes to define the
location of a body in that elliptical orbit.
V. DISCUSSION:

A. Asteroids
1. Most between Mars/Jupiter; some in Jupiter’s orbit, or ‘Near Earth’
2. Small bodies – largest (Ceres) is about 620 miles in diameter—discovered in 1801
3. Some have very eccentric orbits—those not in asteroid belt
4. Irregular shapes—
5. Composition
a. 75% carbonaceous chondrite
b. 17% nickel-iron silicate
c. most others nickel-iron
6. Origin is uncertain—total mass is 1/2 of Moon

B. Comets
1. Often compared to large, "dirty snowballs"
2. Composition
a. Frozen gasses—ices of water, ammonia, methane, CO2, CO
b. Rocky and metallic materials—cemented by the ices
3. Frozen gasses vaporize when near the Sun
a. Produces a glowing head called the coma ~ Jupiter
diameter, with tiny nucleus inside
b. Some may develop a tail that points away from Sun due to
1) Radiation pressure on dust
2) Solar wind pressure on ionized gasses
3) this material is lost from comet forever, reduced in size
c. gasses recondense upon leaving Sun, so no longer spectacular
4. Origin Not well-known form at great distance from Sun
a. Short-period comets < 200 years
1) Probably from Kuiper belt beyond Neptune
a) fairly circular orbits—close to plane of other planets
b) occasional collisions, perhaps perturbed orbits due to gravity of gas
giants, throw Kuiper belt objects into eccentric orbits that pass close to
Sun
2) Most famous short-period comet is Halley's comet
C. Meteoroids
1. Called meteors when they enter Earth's atmosphere— “shooting star”
2. A meteor shower occurs when Earth encounters a swarm of meteoroids associated with a
comet's path
3. Meteoroids are referred to as meteorites when they are found on Earth
a. Types of meteorites classified by their composition
1) Irons—most commonly found
a) Mostly iron, 5-20% nickel
b) May give an idea as to the composition of Earth's core
c) Give an idea as to the age of the solar system 4.5 billion years
2) Stony—most common type
a) Silicate minerals with
b) Inclusions of other minerals
 3) Stony-irons – mixtures

4. origins of meteoroids
a. interplanetary debris not swept up on accretion of planetary bodies
b. displaced objects from asteroid belt
c. remains of disintegrated comets

D. Kuiper belt objects

The Kuiper belt, sometimes called the Edgeworth–Kuiper belt, is a region of the Solar
System beyond the planets extending from the orbit of Neptune to approximately 55 AU from
the Sun. It is similar to the asteroid belt, although it is far larger—20 times as wide and 20–200
times as massive. Like the asteroid belt, it consists mainly of small bodies, or remnants from
the Solar System's formation. While the asteroid belt is composed primarily of rock and metal,
the Kuiper objects are composed largely of frozen volatiles (termed "ices"), such as methane,
ammonia and water. The belt is home to at least three dwarf planets – Pluto, Haumea, and
Makemake. Some of the Solar System's moons, such as Neptune's Triton and Saturn's Phoebe,
are also believed to have originated in the region.

VI, SUMMARY:
The minor members of the solar system are the comets, asteroids, meteoroids, and
Kuiper belt objects. Asteroids are basically rocky and metallic objects that orbit around the sun
but because of their size, they cannot be considered planets. Comets are small, fragile,
irregularly shaped bodies composed of a mixture of nonvolatile grains and frozen gasses. They
all develop a surrounding cloud of diffused materials, called a coma. Normally, a bright
nucleus is visible in the middle of a coma. The coma and the nucleus constitute the head of the
comets. Small pieces of space debris (usually parts of comets or asteroids) that are on a
collision course with the Earth are called meteoroids. When meteoroids enter the Earth's
atmosphere, they are called meteors. Most meteors burn up in the atmosphere, but if they
survive the frictional heating and strike the surface of the Earth, they are called meteorites. The
Kuiper belt is a region of the Solar System beyond the planets extending from the orbit of
Neptune to approximately 55 AU from the Sun. Like the asteroid belt, it consists mainly of
small bodies, or remnants from the Solar System's formation.