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Module

in

Teaching Science in Elementary Grades

(Physics, Earth and Space Science)
Final’s Module

1st Semester A/Y: 2023-2024

Prepared by:

JASON V. COMPETENTE
Instructor

COMPETENCY #14: Other Members of the Solar System: Comets, Meteors and Asteroids
Dwarf Planets
Objectives
At the end of the lesson, the students should be able to:

a. Describe the different characteristics of the comets, meteors, asteroids and dwarf planets
b. Explain the regular occurrence of meteor showers.
c. Determine if the different beliefs and practices about comets and meteors have scientific bases or not.

MOTIVATION

What are the other members of the solar system?

FAST TALK: TRUE OR FALSE. Say True if the statement is correct and False if it is not.

1. Asteroids are sometimes called dirty snowballs or “icy mudballs”.

2. Pluto is a dwarf planet that is part of the Oort Cloud.
3. Ceres is the only known dwarf planet that isn’t located in the Oort Cloud.
4. The tail always points toward the Sun.
5. Asteroid belt is located between earth and mars.

INTRODUCTION

Our solar system’s small bodies- asteroids, comets and meteors- pack big surprises. Asteroids and
comets- and the meteors that sometimes come from them- are leftovers from the formation of our solar
system 4.6 billion years ago. While the planets and moons have changed over the millennia, many of these
small chunks of ice, rock and metal have not. They are a lot like a fossil record of planetary evolution.

CONTEXT

COMETS
Comet History

As of 1995, 878 comets have been cataloged and their orbits at least roughly calculated. Of these 184
are periodic comets (orbital periods less than 200 years); some of the remainder are no doubt periodic as well,
but their orbits have not been determined with sufficient accuracy to tell for sure.

Comets are sometimes called dirty snowballs or “icy mudballs”. They are a mixture of ices (both water
and frozen gases) and dust that for some reason didn’t get incorporated into planets when the solar system
was formed. This makes them very interesting as samples of the early history of the solar system.

When they are near the Sun and active, comets have several distinct parts:
 nucleus: relatively solid and stable, mostly ice and gas with
a small amount of dust and other solids;

coma: dense cloud of water, carbon dioxide and other

neutral gases sublimed from the nucleus;

hydrogen cloud: huge (millions of km in diameter) but

very sparse envelope of neutral hydrogen;

dust tail: up to 10 million km long composed of smoke-

sized dust particles driven off the nucleus by escaping gases; this
is the most prominent part of a comet to the unaided eye;

ion tail: as much as several hundred million km long composed of plasma and laced with rays and
streamers caused by interactions with the solar wind.

Comets are invisible except when they are

near the Sun. Most comets have highly eccentric
orbits which take them far beyond the orbit
of Pluto; these are seen once and then disappear
for millennia. Only the short- and intermediate-
period comets (like Comet Halley), stay within the
orbit of Pluto for a significant fraction of their
orbits.
Meteor shower sometimes occur when
the Earth passes thru the orbit of a comet. Some
occur with great regularity: the Perseid meteor
shower occurs every year between August 9 and
13 when the Earth passes thru the orbit of
Comet Swift-Tuttle. Comet Halley is the source of the Orionid shower in October.

Many comets are first discovered by amateur astronomers. Since comets are brightest when near the Sun,
they are usually visible only at sunrise or sunset. Charts showing the positions in the sky of some comets can
be created with a planetarium program.

How Comets Get Their Names

Comet naming can be complicated. Comets are generally named for their discoverer—either a person
or a spacecraft. This International Astronomical Union guideline was developed only in the last century. For
example, comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 was so named because it was the ninth short-periodic comet discovered by
Eugene and Carolyn Shoemaker and David Levy. Since spacecraft are very effective at spotting comets many
comets have LINEAR, SOHO or WISE in their names.
Interesting Facts about Comet
 Comets come from the Kuiper belt and the Oort Cloud. These areas of space are way out in the solar
system far away from the Sun. The Oort cloud is so far away we have never even seen it! The comets
visible from Earth are most likely ones that came from the closer Kuiper belt which is near Pluto.
 There are millions of comets, and they are all orbiting the Sun. Most take less than two hundred years
to do so, and others travel much slower, potentially taking millions of years to complete an orbit.
 Comets spend most of their years in the Kuiper belt and Oort cloud. Every now and again two comets
can crash into one another. When this happened, they often change direction, and this can throw them
out towards the inner solar system.
 When a comet approaches the inner planets, it is warmed by the Sun. When this happens, it begins to
melt and throws out dust and gas. This creates a head and the tail. The tail is the part of the comet we
see in the sky. The tail always points away from the Sun. This means that sometimes the tail is behind
the comet and sometimes it in front. It all depends on whether the comet is travelling towards or away
from the Sun.
 Travelling through a comet’s tail is not dangerous. Earth even passes through them. When this
happens, we see a meteor shower!
 The word comet comes from the Greek word Kometes meaning long hair. This is because of how a
comet’s tail can look like long flowing locks of hair.
 Like asteroids, comets are leftovers from the formation of the Solar System. We don’t know an awful
lot about them at this point, but scientists believe they may hold clues to how the Solar System came
to be.
 The most famous comet of all time is Halley’s Comet. Halley is a periodic comet and is visible from
Earth every 76 years and has been for centuries. It made its last appearance in 1986. Other famous
comets include the Hale-Bopp Comet, Donati’s comet and the Shoemaker-Levy 9 Comet.

TOP TEN COMETS

1. Halley’s Comet
Halley’s Comet is the most famous of all comets. British astronomer Edmund Halley was the first to
realise that comets are periodic, after observing it in 1682 and tallying it to records of two previous comet
appearances. He correctly predicted it would return in 1757. The comet is also though to be depicted in the
1066 Bayeux Tapestry.
Halley’s Comet, which is 8 kilometres (5 miles) wide and 16 km (10 miles) long, travels around the Sun
every 75 to 76 years in an elongated orbit. It last passed close to Earth in February 1986.

2. Shoemaker Levy-9
Comet Shoemaker Levy-9 distinguished itself by breaking into 21 pieces under the stresses of Jupiter’s
gravity in 1992 and then slamming in succession into the giant planet in 1994. The spectacular show was
watched by telescopes across Earth, in orbit and aboard the space probe Galileo.
The impact of one fragment – around 3 km across – is said to have yielded an explosion and fireball
equivalent to 6 million megatonnes of TNT. The plume reached 22,000 km (13,700 miles) above the cloud
tops.
3. Hyakutake
An icy-blue blob with a faint gas tail created the most spectacular comet display for 20 years as Comet
Hyakutake passed just 15 million kilometres (9.3 million miles) from Earth in March 1996. It was the closest
the comet had come to the Sun in 9000 years. The comet left astronomers puzzled as it produced X-rays 100
times more intense than predicted.
The spacecraft Ulysses unintentionally passed through Hyakutake’s tail in May 1996, showing that it as
at least 570 million km (350 million miles) long – twice as long as that of any other known comet.
4. Hale Bopp
Comet Hale Bopp made its closest approach to Earth for 4000 years in January 1997. The last time the
cosmic wanderer was seen near Earth was during the Bronze age in 2000 BC. Hale Bopp is much larger and
more spectacular than Halley’s comet. It has a nucleus up to 40 km (24 miles) in diameter and could be viewed
from Earth with the naked eye. Hale-Bopp is so bright that it was visible from Earth as early as 1995, when it
was still outside the orbit of Jupiter.
The advent of Hale Bopp led to a bizarre and tragic human event – 39 members of the Heaven’s Gate
cult in San Diego, US, marked the arrival by committing suicide.

5. Comet Borrelly
After Halley’s Comet, Comet Borrelly was only the second to be spied close-up by a spacecraft. NASA’s
Deep Space 1 paid a visit in 2001 and gave researchers a detailed glimpse of the comet’s pitch black core. Its
snapshots revealed that the rocky nucleus is shaped like a giant 8-kilometre-long bowling pin, and the entire
comet is curiously lopsided.
Unlike Halley’s Comet, which formed in the Oort Cloud at the outer edges of the Solar System, Borrelly
is believed to originate in an icy cloud of rocks beyond Neptune called the Kuiper Belt.

6. Comet Encke
Comet Encke was the second comet discovered to be periodic, by German Astronomer Johann Franz
Encke in 1819. The comet is also the parent body of the annual Taurid meteor shower in October and
November. It is a relatively old comet that now gives off little gas.
NASA’s CONTOUR comet chasing spacecraft was due to rendezvous with Encke in November 2003,
providing valuable insights into the formation of the solar system. However, the $159 million spacecraft is
thought to have broken in two after its engines fired to propel the spacecraft out of Earth’s orbit in August
2002.

7. Tempel-Tuttel
Temple Tuttle is the progenitor of the annual Leonid meteor shower. Thousands of shooting stars
streak across the night sky every November, as the Earth passes through the dust particles and rocky
meteoroids haphazardly shed by the comet.
Very bright meteor showers were seen in 2002 as Earth passed through debris trails left in 1767 and
1866. But astronomers have predicted that these may have been the last major Leonid storms for up to 30
years. This is because the comet melts and sheds matter unevenly on its journey through the solar system, and
we may not pass through another dense cloud of debris for some time.
8. Comet Wild 2
Comet Wild 2 was visited by NASA’s Stardust in January 2004. The spaceprobe flew within 236
kilometres (147 miles) of the nucleus, taking some of the best pictures yet.
It also collected the first ever sample of dust particles to be taken from a comet’s wake. Stardust
returned to Earth with its precious cargo in January 2006. This will provide insight into the conditions under
which Wild 2 – and the solar system – formed, 4.5 billion years in the Kuiper belt.

Wild 2 is roughly 5 km in diameter and riddled with depressions, craters and cliffs. These may have been
formed by jets of gas exploding out from beneath the surface.

9. Comet Tempel 1
On 4 July 2005, NASA’s Deep Impact spacecraft fired a washing-machine-sized impactor into the path
of comet Tempel 1. The impactor hit the surface at 37,000 km/h (23,000 mph), creating a huge plume of dust
and blasting out a crater the size of a football stadium.
NASA aimed to punch a hole in Tempel 1’s crust to reveal details about the interior of comets.
However, that may be impossible as the dust cloud was bigger than expected, and NASA can not correct the
obscured images taken by the space probe.
Tempel 1 is 6 km in size and hurtles along at 10 km (6 miles) per second. Its orbit has been changed by the
gravity of Jupiter since it was discovered in 1867, and it now orbits the Sun every 5 to 6 years.

10. Churyumov-Gerasimenko
Launched in 2004, the European Space Agency’s Rosetta space probe is due to touch down on
Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko – or Chury – in 2014. The comet is thought to be around five kilometres
across and currently orbits the sun about every 6.6 years. Its orbit used to be much larger, but interactions
with Jupiter’s gravity since 1840 have knocked it into a much smaller orbit.
After a few months in orbit around Chury, Rosetta will release a small cube-shaped lander called Philae
on to the comet’s icy nucleus. The orbiter will then spend nearly two years circling Chury as the comet heads
back towards the Sun. Rosetta will study the comet’s composition to help us better understand the formation
of our solar system.

Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9975-top-10-comets/#ixzz6MfMy0cKX

SAQ #1: What are the possible effects of the comets hitting the earth? How does the activity of the nucleus
change as the comet approaches the sun? (5 points)

Meteors, Meteoroids and Meteorites

What’s the difference between a meteor, meteoroid and meteorite?

They’re all related to the flashes of light called “shooting stars” sometimes seen streaking across the sky. But
we call the same object by different names, depending on where it is.
Scientists collecting a meteorite from the Miller Range in Antarctica.
Meteoroids are objects in space that range in size from dust grains to small asteroids. Think of them as “space
rocks." Most are pieces of other, larger bodies that have been broken or blasted off. Some come from comets,
others from asteroids, and some even come from the Moon and other planets. Some meteoroids are rocky,
while others are metallic, or combinations of rock and metal.

When meteoroids enter Earth’s atmosphere (or that of another planet, like Mars) at high speed and burn up,
the fireballs or “shooting stars” are called meteors. Sometimes meteors can even appear brighter than Venus
-- that’s when we call them “fireballs.” Scientists estimate that about 48.5 tons (44,000 kilograms) of
meteoritic material falls on Earth each day.

When a meteoroid survives a trip through the atmosphere and hits the ground, it’s called a meteorite.

What is a Meteor Shower?

Several meteors per hour can usually be seen on any given night. When there are lots more meteors,
you’re watching a meteor shower. Some meteor showers occur annually or at regular intervals as the Earth
passes through the trail of dusty debris left by a comet (and, in a few cases, asteroids). Scientists estimate that
about 48.5 tons (44 tonnes or 44,000 kilograms) of meteoritic material falls on the Earth each day. Almost all
the material is vaporized in Earth's atmosphere, leaving a bright trail fondly called "shooting stars." Several
meteors per hour can usually be seen on any given night. Sometimes the number increases dramatically—
these events are termed meteor showers.

Meteor showers occur annually or at regular intervals as the Earth passes through the trail of dusty
debris left by a comet. Meteor showers are usually named after a star or constellation that is close to where
the meteors appear to originate in the sky. Perhaps the most famous are the Perseids, which peak around
August 12 every year. Every Perseid meteor is a tiny piece of the comet Swift-Tuttle, which swings by the Sun
every 135 years. Other notable meteor showers include the Leonids, associated with comet Tempel-Tuttle;
the Aquarids and Orionids, linked to comet Halley, and the Taurids, associated with comet Encke. Most of
this comet debris is between the size of a grain of sand and a pea and burns up in the atmosphere before
reaching the ground. Sometimes, meteor dust is captured by high-altitude aircraft and analyzed in NASA
laboratories.

Why Do We Care About Meteorites?

Meteorites that fall to Earth represent some of the original, diverse materials that formed planets
billions of years ago. By studying meteorites we can learn about early conditions and processes in the solar
system’s history. These include the age and composition of different planetary building blocks, the
temperatures achieved at the surfaces and interiors of asteroids, and the degree to which materials were
shocked by impacts in the past.

What Do Meteorites Look Like?

Meteorites may resemble Earth rocks, but they usually have a burned exterior that can appear shiny.
This “fusion crust” forms as the meteorite’s outer surface melts while passing through the atmosphere.
There are three major types of meteorites: the "irons," the "stonys," and the stony-irons. Although the
majority of meteorites that fall to Earth are stony, most of the meteorites discovered long after they fall are
irons. Irons are heavier and easier to distinguish from Earth rocks than stony meteorites.

How Do We Know Where Meteorites Come From?

Scientists can tell where meteorites originate based on several lines of evidence. They can use photographic
observations of meteorite falls to calculate orbits and project their paths back to the asteroid belt. They can
also compare compositional properties of meteorites to the different classes of asteroids. And they can study
how old the meteorites are – up to 4.6 billion years.

This rock encountered by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover is an iron meteorite called "Lebanon." Lebanon is about
2 yards or 2 meters wide (left to right, from this angle). The smaller piece in the foreground is called "Lebanon

B." Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/IRAP/LPGNantes/CNRS/IAS/MSSS

Martian rocks can be traced to the Red Planet because they contain pockets of trapped gas that matches what
satellites and rovers have found at Mars. Similarly, if the composition of a meteorite resembles rocks that
astronauts brought back from the Moon during the Apollo mission, it is likely to be lunar, too. We know that a
class of meteorites called “howardite-eucrite-diogenite” (HED) came from the planet-like world Vesta in the
asteroid belt, thanks to NASA’s Dawn mission.

What Kinds of Meteorites Have Been Found?

More than 50,000 meteorites have been found on Earth.
Of these, 99.8 percent come from asteroids. The remaining small fraction (0.2 percent) of meteorites is split
roughly equally between meteorites from Mars and the Moon. The over 60 known Martian meteorites were
blasted off Mars by meteoroid impacts. All are igneous rocks crystallized from magma. The rocks are very
much like Earth rocks with some distinctive compositions that indicate Martian origin.
The nearly 80 lunar meteorites are similar in mineralogy and composition to Apollo mission Moon
rocks, but distinct enough to show that they have come from other parts of the Moon. Studies of lunar and
Martian meteorites complement studies of Apollo Moon rocks and the robotic exploration of Mars.
SAQ #2: Differentiate meteoroid from meteors and meteorites. How do meteor showers occur? Discuss the
significance of meteorites that have been found on earth? (5 points)

Meteorite Impacts in History

A very large asteroid impact 65 million years ago is thought to have contributed to the extinction of
about 75 percent of marine and land animals on Earth at the time, including the dinosaurs. It created the 180-
mile-wide (300-kilometer-wide) Chicxulub Crater on the Yucatan Peninsula.

One of the most intact impact craters is the Barringer Meteor Crater in Arizona. It’s about 0.6 miles (1
kilometer) across and was formed by the impact of a piece of iron-nickel metal approximately 164 feet (50
meters) in diameter. It is only 50,000 years old and so well preserved that it has been used to study impact
processes. Since the 1890s geologists studied it, but its status as an impact crater wasn’t confirmed until 1960.
Meteor Crater in Arizona. Note vehicles in parking lot for scale. Credit: USGS

Asteroids

Asteroids are rocky worlds revolving around the sun that are too small to be called planets. They are
also known as planetoids or minor planets. There are millions of asteroids, ranging in size from hundreds of
miles to several feet across. In total, the mass of all the asteroids is less than that of Earth's moon.

In the first day of January 1801, Giuseppe Piazzi discovered an object which he first thought was a new
comet. But after its orbit was better determined it was clear that it was not a comet but more like a small
planet. Piazzi named it Ceres, after the Sicilian goddess of grain. Three other small bodies were discovered in
the next few years (Pallas, Vesta, and Juno). By the end of the 19th century there were several hundred.

There are 26 known asteroids larger than 200 km in diameter. Our census of the largest ones is now
fairly complete: we probably know 99% of the asteroids larger than 100 km in diameter. Of those in the 10 to
100 km range we have cataloged about half. But we know very few of the smaller ones; there are probably
considerably more than a million asteroids in the 1 km range.
The total mass of all the asteroids is less than that of the Moon.
 11 comets and asteroids have been explored by spacecraft so far, as follows: ICE flyby of Comet
Giacobini-Zinner. Multiple flyby missions to Comet Halley. Giotto (retarget) to Comet Grigg-Skellerup. Galileo
flybys of asteroids Gaspra and Ida (and Ida satellite Dactyl). NEAR-Shoemaker flyby of asteroid Mathilde on the
way to orbit and land on Eros. DS-1 flybys of asteroid Braille and Comet Borrelly. Stardust flyby of asteroid
Annefrank and recent sample collection from Comet Wild 2. For future we can expect: Hayabusa (MUSES-C) to
asteroid Itokawa, Rosetta to Comet Churyumov-Gerasmenko, Deep Impact to Comet Tempel 1, and Dawn to
orbit asteroids Vesta and Ceres.

243 Ida and 951 Gaspra were photographed by the Galileo spacecraft on its way to Jupiter.
The NEAR mission flew by 253 Mathilde (left) on 1997 June 27 returning many images. NEAR (now renamed
“NEAR-Shoemaker”) entered orbit around 433 Eros (right) in January 1999 and returned a wealth of images
and data. At the end of its mission it actually landed on Eros.

Asteroids are classified into a number of types according to their spectra (and hence their chemical
composition) and albedo:
 C-type, includes more than 75% of known asteroids: extremely dark (albedo 0.03); similar to
carbonaceous chondrite meteorites; approximately the same chemical composition as the Sun minus
hydrogen, helium and other volatiles; grayish in color and are the most common, including more than
75 percent of known asteroids. They probably consist of clay and stony silicate rocks, and inhabit the
main belt's outer regions.
 S-type, 17%: relatively bright (albedo .10-.22); metallic nickel-iron mixed with iron- and magnesium-
silicates; greenish to reddish in color, account for about 17 percent of known asteroids, and dominate
the inner asteroid belt. They appear to be made of silicate materials and nickel-iron.
 M-type, most of the rest: bright (albedo .10-.18); pure nickel-iron. reddish in color, make up most of
the rest of the asteroids, and dwell in the middle region of the main belt. They seem to be made up of
nickle-iron.
 There are also a dozen or so other rare types.

Asteroids are also categorized by their position in the solar system:

 Main Belt: located between Mars and Jupiter roughly 2 – 4 AU from the Sun; further divided into
subgroups: Hungarias, Floras, Phocaea, Koronis, Eos, Themis, Cybeles and Hildas (which are named
after the main asteroid in the group). The belt is estimated to contain between 1.1 and 1.9 million
asteroids larger than 1 kilometer (0.6 mile) in diameter, and millions of smaller ones. Early in the
history of the solar system, the gravity of newly formed Jupiter brought an end to the formation of
planetary bodies in this region and caused the small bodies to collide with one another, fragmenting
them into the asteroids we observe today.
 Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs): ones that closely approach the Earth
Atens: semimajor axes less than 1.0 AU and aphelion distances greater than 0.983 AU; Apollos:
semimajor axes greater than 1.0 AU and perihelion distances less than 1.017 AU Amors: perihelion
distances between 1.017 and 1.3 AU;
 Trojans: These asteroids share an orbit with a larger planet, but do not collide with it because they
gather around two special places in the orbit (called the L4 and L5 Lagrangian points). Located near
 Jupiter’s Lagrange points (60 degrees ahead and behind Jupiter in its orbit). Several hundred such
asteroids are now known; it is estimated that there may be a thousand or more altogether. Curiously,
there are many more in the leading Lagrange point (L4) than in the trailing one (L5). (There may also be
a few small asteroids in the Lagrange points of Venus and Earth (see Earth’s Second Moon) that are
also sometimes known as Trojans; 5261 Eureka is a “Mars Trojan”.)

Between the main concentrations of asteroids in the Main Belt are relatively empty regions known as
the Kirkwood gaps. These are regions where an object’s orbital period would be a simple fraction of that
of Jupiter. An object in such an orbit is very likely to be accelerated by Jupiter into a different orbit.

There also a few “asteroids” (designated as “Centaurs“) in the outer solar system: 2060 Chiron (aka 95
P/Chiron) orbits between Saturn and Uranus; the orbit of 5335 Damocles ranges from near Mars to beyond
Uranus; 5145 Pholus orbits from Saturn to past Neptune. There are probably many more, but such planet-
crossing orbits are unstable and they are likely to be perturbed in the future. The composition of these objects
is probably more like that of comets or the Kuiper Belt objects than that of ordinary asteroids. In particular,
Chiron is now classified as a comet.

4Vesta has been studied recently with HST (left). It is a particularly interesting asteroid in that it seems to
have been differentiated into layers like the terrestrial planets. This implies some internal heat source in
addition to the heat released by long-lived radio-isotopes which alone would be insufficient to melt such a
small object. There is also a gigantic impact basin so deep that it exposes the mantle beneath Vesta’s outer
crust.
Though they are never visible with the unaided eye, many asteroids are visible with binoculars or a small
telescope.

Interesting Facts about Asteroids

 The size of asteroids varies from the size of a speck of dust to the size of 945 kilometers (587 miles)
in diameter! This is the dwarf planet Ceres – the largest discovered asteroid in the solar system.
 Most of the asteroids orbit the Sun between the orbit of Mars and Jupiter. This area is called the
asteroid belt.
Some of the larger asteroids can also be referred to as planetoids and minor planets. Ceres is the only
dwarf planet to still keep its asteroid label.
 Asteroids are grouped into categories based on their composition – what the asteroids are made
from.
 C-types, called chondrites, are made of clay and silicate rocks. These are by far the most common
type of asteroid. These orbit furthest away from the Sun, mostly in the outer belt, so they have not
been altered by the Sun’s heat.
 S-types, known as siliceous asteroids, are the stony asteroids made up of silicate rocks and nickel-
iron mixtures. These are found mostly in the inner Asteroid belt.
 M-types are the metallic asteroids. These are mostly made up of nickel-iron.
 It is thought that asteroids are the leftover debris from the formation of the inner planets.
 The asteroids are irregularly shaped. This is due to their smaller size and small gravitational field.
Objects with a large mass carry a large gravitational field. This gravitational force pulls inwards,
 bringing the larger objects (such as the planets and moons) into a mostly spherical shape. Asteroids
lack the ability to do this as their gravity is low and just enough to hold the materials together, but not
enough to make this round shape.
 The most famous asteroids are dwarf planet Ceres, Pallas – a huge 544-kilometre asteroid and Vesta
– a very bright large object. These are all asteroids but also referred to as minor planets. Astronomers
have been aware of them since the early 1800s.
 There is a very small chance of an asteroid colliding with our planet. Earth and other planets in the
solar system were created through the process of objects crashing into one another to form larger
worlds. These collisions are still happening, but luckily most of the larger items are gone, now making
up parts of the planets we know. Luckily smaller objects would be destroyed by the Earth’s atmosphere
if they orbited close to our home planet. Just in case there are many astronomers keeping an eye on
the positions of any asteroids nearing Earth. These people map out the orbit path of these objects and
can predict impacts well in advance.
 An asteroid colliding with Earth roughly 66 million years ago is thought to be one of the main factors
bringing the dinosaurs to extinction.
 Roughly once every 2000 years and object about the size of a football field collides with Earth. The
asteroid that hit Earth 65 million years ago would have been much much larger than this!
 If you grouped all of the known asteroids, their mass would still be smaller than that of our Moon.

The Asteroid Belt

The asteroid belt is located between the inner and the outer
planets and is home to thousands of rocks and debris
known as asteroids and some of the dwarf
planets. All of these orbit the Sun.

Some asteroids do orbit in space

near to Earth and some are forced out of
the asteroid belt by gravity and sent
towards the outer solar system instead.

What Exactly Is The Asteroid Belt?

There are hundreds of thousands
of asteroids in the asteroid belt, but almost
half of the entire mass is made up of just four objects.
These objects are the dwarf planet Ceres, and
three other asteroids called Vesta, Pallas
and Hygiea. The diameters of Vesta, Pallas
and Hygiea are over 400km and Ceres is even bigger at 950km diameter.

Of the many thousands of asteroids in the asteroid belt, Ceres is the only one large enough to be
classified as a “dwarf planet”. Apart from these four objects, the remaining objects in the asteroid belt range
in size from small rocks right down to dust particles.
How Far Away Is The Asteroid Belt?
The asteroid belt is between the planets Mars and Jupiter. It is located about 2.2 to 3.2 Astronomical
Units (AU) from the Sun. That is somewhere between 329-478 million km away.
The asteroid belt is huge and the space between each of the asteroids is over 600,000 miles. The
circumference of Earth is only 24,901.45 miles, which means that the distance between objects in the asteroid
belt is more than 24 times the circumference of Earth.

Interesting Facts About The Asteroid Belt

 The asteroid belt was first discovered in 1801. This is when Giuseppe Piazzi discovered Ceres. Ceres is
a dwarf planet and was the first object to be observed in the asteroid belt. Fifteen months later a large
asteroid was spotted and named Pallas. Over the next few decades more objects were found and in the
1850s astronomers began calling the region “the asteroid belt”. By the year 2000 over 100,000
asteroids had been discovered.
 The asteroid belt is a disc shape, located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
 The asteroids are made of rock and metal and are all irregularly shaped.
 The size of the objects within the asteroid belt range from being as small as a dust particle to almost
1000km wide. The largest is the dwarf planet Ceres. Ceres is the only dwarf planet in the asteroid belt.
 The four largest objects in the belt are Ceres, Vesta, Pallas and Hygiea.
 Many people picture the belt crowded with asteroids. However this is not the case. The asteroid belt
is so vast that the objects are widely spread out, in fact spacecraft have managed to easily travel
through the belt without collision.
 Astronomers used to believe that the objects within the asteroid belt were the remnant of a planet
smaller than Earth’s moon that had exploded. However this theory is now accepted to be untrue and
it is thought the asteroids were never part of a planet.
 Gravitational forces can throw asteroids out of the belt and send them towards the inner solar
system. Asteroids are similar to comets but lack the coma which appears as a tail.
 Sometimes the asteroid belt is called the main belt to help differentiate between other groups of
asteroids in the solar system.

SAQ #3: How do the asteroids being classified? Discuss the possible effects once the large asteroids hits the
earth. (5 points)

The Largets Asteroids

1 Ceres
Giuseppe Piazzi discovered 1 Ceres in 1801, and at first it was considered to be the eighth planet; Neptune and
Pluto had not been discovered. It was the first asteroid to be discovered, and is the largest found to date. It is
near spherical, 975 km (606 miles) across at the equator, with a polar diameter of 909 km (565 miles). It is the
only asteroid considered a dwarf planet, although it is the smallest dwarf planet. Its shape suggests that it has
a differentiated interior, similar to the Earth and other rocky planets, with a rocky inner core and a thin, outer
crust. Ceres may have large deposits of water ice under its crust because as its density is rather low. There is
also evidence that the surface contains water-bearing minerals. It is possible that Ceres could have more
water than all the fresh water on Earth, but as a layer of water ice in the mantle wrapped around the core.
Ceres contains almost a third of the mass of the entire asteroid belt. Planetary astronomers generally believe
Ceres formed as a protoplanet in the early days of the solar system, but did not merge with other protoplanets
in the same way that, for example, the Earth did. Its orbit takes it from 2.5468 AU to 2.9858 AU from the Sun.
It takes 4.6 years to go once around the sun.

4 Vesta
Discovered not long after Ceres, in 1807, 4 Vesta was the fourth found, and is the second largest asteroid, by
weight. It is elongated, about 580 km by 460 km (360 by 285 miles). It represents about 9% of the total mass
of the asteroid belt objects. Within the last billion years, Vesta suffered a catastrophic collision that left a
crater at its south pole that is about 460 km across, and blew about 1% of its entire mass into space. The
remaining fragments, at least 235 found to date, together with Vesta, comprise the Vesta group of asteroids.
Some fragments are believed to be the source of the HED meteorites, many of which found their way to the
Earth and have been recovered. Its slightly eccentric orbit takes it from 2.151 AU to 2.572 AU from the Sun. It
takes 3.63 years to go once around the sun.

2 Pallas
2 Pallas was discovered in 1802, and is about 580 km by 500 km (average 544 km), making it comparable in
size to Vesta, but it is substantially lighter being about 7% of the mass of the asteroids. It has an eccentric
orbit around the sun, varying from 2.132 AU to 3.412 AU, which is substantially inclined to the plane of the
main asteroid belt by nearly 35°.

10 Hygiea
10 Hygiea, discovered in 1849, is the fourth largest of the asteroids, and is also elongated, about 530 x 407 x
370 km (average 431 km). Its orbit is somewhat eccentric, taking it from 2.77 AU to 3.507 AU, and it goes
around the Sun every 5.56 years. It is the largest asteroid in the Hygiea family representing more than 90% of
the mass of the family.

704 Interamnia
704 Interamnia is about 350.3 x 303.6 km, with an average diameter of 326 km. It represents about 1.2% of
the total mass of the asteroid belt. Its orbit is moderately eccentric varying between 2.601 AU and 3.522 AU,
and takes about 5.36 years to go around the Sun.

52 Europa
52 Europa is an elongated asteroid some 360 x 315 x 240 km. It has a low density, and is porous. Its slightly
eccentric orbit takes it from 2.785 AU out to 3.417 AU, and it goes once around the Sun every 5.46 years.

511 Davida
511 Davida is an elongated asteroid some 357 x 294 x 231 km. Its slightly eccentric orbit takes it from 2.58 AU
out to 3.754 AU, and it goes once around the Sun every 5.64 years. It is believed to have a massive impact
crater on its surface about 150 km in diameter.
87 Sylvia
87 Sylvia is a low density, elongated asteroid some 384 x 262 x 232 km. Its slightly eccentric orbit takes it from
3.213 AU out to 3.768 AU, and it goes once around the Sun every 6.52 years. Sylvia has two small moons
called Romulus and Remus. Romulus is about 18 km in diameter and orbits at a distance of 1356 km every
87.59 hours. Remus, the second moon is 7 km in diameter and orbits at a distance of 706 5 km every 33.09 h.

65 Cybele
65 Cybele is about 302 x 290 x 232 km. Its slightly eccentric orbit takes it from 3.073 AU out to 3.794 AU, and
it goes once around the Sun every 6.36 years.

15 Eunomia
15 Eunomia is an elongated asteroid some 357 by 255 by 212 km. Its slightly eccentric orbit takes it from
2.149 AU out to 33.138 AU, and it goes once around the Sun every 4.3 years.

Dwarf Planets

There are 5 officially recognised dwarf planets in our solar system, they
are Ceres, Pluto, Haumea, Makemake and Eris. With the exception of Ceres, which is located in the asteroid
belt, the other dwarf planets are found in the outer solar system. There are another 6 objects in our solar
system that are almost certainly dwarf planets and there may as many as 10,000. Of the dwarf planets only 2
have been visited by space probes, in 2015 NASA’s Dawn and New Horizons missions reached Ceres and Pluto
respectively.

What is Dwarf Planet?

Dwarf planets share many of the same characteristics as planets though there is one significant difference. The
International Astronomical Union’s definition of a dwarf planet is:

A “dwarf planet” is a celestial body that

 is in orbit around the Sun,
 has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic
equilibrium (nearly round) shape,
 has not cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit, and
 is not a satellite.
The key difference is that a planet has cleared other objects in the area of its orbit while a dwarf planet has
not.
Sizes of the Dwarf Planets

The Dwarf Planets Ceres, Pluto, Haumea, Makemake and Eris

The largest dwarf planet in the solar system is Pluto followed by Eris, Makemake, Haumea, with the
smallest being Ceres. The order of the dwarf planets from closest to Sun outwards is Ceres, Pluto,
Haumea, Makemake, with Eris being the furthest from the Sun.
Name Diameter Distance from Sun Length of Year

Ceres 950 km 413,700,000 km 4.6 Earth years

Pluto 2,372 km 5,874,000,000 km 248.0 Earth years

Haumea 1,960 - 1,518 × 996 km 6,452,000,000 km 283.3 Earth years

Makemak 1,434 × 1,422 km 6,850,000,000 km 309.9 Earth years

e

Eris 2,326 km 10,120,000,000 km 560.9 Earth years

1. PLUTO

The name Pluto was proposed by Venetia Burney, an eleven schoolgirl in Oxford, England, after a
survey was conducted, and the name Pluto won by votes. The name was announced on May 1, 1930. Then
little girl received a modern equivalent of 450 USD. The final choice of a name was helped in part by the fact
that the first letters of Pluto are the initials of Percival Lowell.
Classification controversy
Pluto’s demotion as a planet to a dwarf
planet is still highly controversial to this day. Even
now there are people in high positions at NASA
who vehemently opt for Pluto’s reclassification as
a planet while others still consider it as a planet
regardless of IAU’s decision.

NASA’s Administrator Jim Bridenstine,

publicly declared that Pluto should definitely be a
planet. Observations from NASA’s New Horizons
spacecraft in 2015 revealed a greater complexity
of Pluto than previously believed. A probable
underground ocean, organic materials (the
potential precursors of life) on the surface, and a
multilayered atmosphere were revealed and thus prompt new debates around Pluto. Pluto was classified as a
planet for 75 years and later demoted to the status of a dwarf planet after similar objects were discovered in
the Kuiper Belt.

However, the discovery of Eris in 2005, a dwarf planet similar to Pluto, caused problems to erupt and
thus triggered the debate in the scientific community about what should be considered a planet.
Three requirements were stated:
 The object must be in orbit around the Sun
 The object must be massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity.
 It must have cleared the neighborhood around its orbit.

Pluto failed to meet the third condition. Its mass is substantially less than the combined mass of the other
objects in its orbit 0.07 times, in contrast to Earth, which is 1.7 million times the remaining mass in the orbit,
without the moon.

July 14, 2017: On July 14, 2015, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft made its historic flight through the Pluto
system – providing the first close-up images of Pluto and its moons and collecting other data that has
transformed our understanding of these mysterious worlds on the solar system’s outer frontier.

Pluto is a complex and mysterious world with mountains, valleys, plains, craters, and maybe glaciers.
Discovered in 1930, Pluto was long considered our solar system's ninth planet. But after the discovery of
similar intriguing worlds deeper in the distant Kuiper Belt, icy Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet.

Pluto is orbited by five known moons, the largest of which is Charon. Charon is about half the size of Pluto
itself, making it the largest satellite relative to the planet it orbits in our solar system. Pluto and Charon are
often referred to as a "double planet."

Pluto is named after the Roman god of the underworld.

Size and Distance
With a radius of 715 miles (1,151 kilometers), Pluto is about 1/6 the width of Earth. If Earth was the
size of a nickel, Pluto would be about as big as a popcorn kernel.

From an average distance of 3.7 billion miles (5.9 billion kilometers), Pluto is 39 astronomical units
away from the sun. One astronomical unit (abbreviated as AU), is the distance from the sun to Earth. From this
distance, it takes sunlight 5.5 hours to travel from the sun to Pluto.

Orbit and Rotation

Pluto's orbit around the sun is unusual compared to the planets: it's both elliptical and tilted. Pluto's
248-year-long, oval-shaped orbit can take it as far as 49.3 astronomical units (AU) from the sun, and as close
as 30 AU. (One AU is the mean distance between Earth and the sun: about 93 million miles or 150 million
kilometers.) But on average, Pluto is 3.7 billion miles (5.9 billion kilometers) away from the sun, or 39 AU.
From 1979 to 1999, Pluto was near perihelion, when it is closest to the sun. During this time, Pluto was
actually closer to the sun than Neptune.
One day on Pluto takes about 153 hours. Its axis of rotation is tilted 57 degrees with respect to the
plane of its orbit around the sun, so it spins almost on its side. Pluto also exhibits a retrograde rotation;
spinning from east to west like Venus and Uranus.

Structure
Pluto is about two-thirds the diameter of Earth's moon and probably has a rocky core surrounded by a
mantle of water ice. Interesting ices like methane and nitrogen frost coat its surface. Due to its lower density,
Pluto's mass is about one-sixth that of Earth's moon.

Formation
Dwarf planet Pluto is a member of a group of objects that orbit in a disc-like zone beyond the orbit of
Neptune called the Kuiper Belt. This distant realm is populated with thousands of miniature icy worlds, which
formed early in the history of our solar system about 4.5 billion years ago. These icy, rocky bodies are called
Kuiper Belt objects, transneptunian objects, or plutoids.

Surface
Pluto's surface is characterized by mountains, valleys, plains, and craters. The temperature on Pluto
can be as cold as -375 to -400 degrees Fahrenheit (-226 to -240 degrees Celsius).
Pluto's mountains can be as tall as 6,500 to 9,800 feet (2 to 3 kilometers) and are big blocks of water
ice, sometimes with a coating of frozen gases like methane. And long troughs and valleys as long as 370 miles
(600 kilometers) add to the interesting features of this faraway dwarf planet.

Atmosphere
Pluto has a thin, tenuous atmosphere that expands when it comes closer to the sun and collapses as it
moves farther away—similar to a comet. The main constituent is molecular nitrogen, though molecules of
methane and carbon monoxide have also been detected.
When Pluto is close to the sun, its surface ices sublimate (changing directly from solid to gas) and rise to
temporarily form a thin atmosphere. Pluto's low gravity (about six percent of Earth's) causes the atmosphere
to be much more extended in altitude than our planet's atmosphere. Pluto becomes much colder during the
part of each year when it is traveling far away from the sun.
The tenuous atmosphere is consisting of nitrogen, methane, and carbon monoxide. According to
measurements by New Horizons, the surface pressure is about 1 Pa, roughly one million to 100,000 times less
than Earth’s atmospheric pressure. Through observations by New Horizons, it has been revealed that Pluto’s
upper atmosphere to be far colder than expected, 70K or -203.15 degrees Celsius. The atmosphere is divided
into about 20 regularly spaced haze layers up to 150 kilometers high, or about 93 miles.

Magnetosphere
It isn't known whether Pluto has a magnetic field, but its small size and slow rotation suggest little or
none.

Rings
There are no known rings around Pluto.

Moons
Pluto has five known moons: Charon, Nix, Hydra, Kerberos and Styx. This moon system might have
formed by a collision between Pluto and another similar-sized body early in the history of the solar system.
They were first identified in 1978 by astronomer James Christy. The orbit periods of all the moons are linked in
a system of orbital resonances and near resonances. The 4 small moons spin and don’t keep the same face
towards Pluto, as Charon does.

1. Charon
Charon, the biggest of Pluto's moons, is
about half the size of Pluto itself, making it the
largest satellite relative to the planet it orbits in
our solar system. It orbits Pluto at a distance of
just 12,200 miles (19,640 kilometers). For
comparison, our moon is 20 times farther away
from Earth. Pluto and Charon are often referred
to as a double planet.
Charon's orbit around Pluto takes 153
hours—the same time it takes Pluto to complete
one rotation. This means Charon neither rises nor
sets, but hovers over the same spot on Pluto's
surface. The same side of Charon always faces
Pluto, a state called tidal locking.
 Some prefer to think of Pluto/Charon as a
double planet rather than a planet and a moon.
Charon and Pluto orbit each other once
every 6.387 days. They are gravitationally locked to
one another. Each keeps the same face towards the
other. It is 55% composed out of rock and 45% out
of ice. It doesn’t have an atmosphere and its
reddish polar region, informally dubbed Mordor, is
the result of the presence of tholins – organic
molecules based on methane and nitrogen.

2. Nix
It has a diameter of 49.8 kilometers or 30.9 miles and was discovered along with Hydra in June 2005. It
was named after the Greek goddess of the night. It is the third moon of Pluto by distance, orbiting between
the moons Styx and Kerberos. The reason for naming it Nix,
and the other moon Hydra, was to honor the spacecraft
mission New Horizons, the initials N and H.

The reddish area on Nix is most likely due to an

impact crater. Nix’s brightness is about 5,000 fainter than
Pluto’s. It is thought to have been formed from debris after
Pluto suffered a collision. It completes a rotation in 43.9
hours retrograde to Pluto’s equator with an axial tilt of 132
degrees. The rotation rate has increased since it was
estimated, by about 10%.

3. Styx
Styx’s discovery was announced in 2012, it is the second satellite of Pluto by distance and the last
discovered, one year after Kerberos. It is approximately 16 kilometers or 9.9 miles across its longest dimension
with an orbital period of 20.2 days.

It orbits the Pluto-Charon barycenter at a distance of 42,656 kilometers, putting it between the orbits
of Charon and Nix. It is in an 11:6 orbital resonance with Hydra, and an 11:9 resonance with Nix. Styx was both
a deity and a river that formed the boundary between Earth and the Underworld in Greek mythology.

4. Kerberos
Kerberos is about 19 kilometers or 12 miles in its longest dimension. It was the fourth moon to be
discovered, and was announced in 2011. The double-lobed shape of Kerberos is likely formed by two smaller
objects that merged.
 The rotational period of Kerberos was about 5.33
days and its rotational axis was tilted about 96 degrees to its
orbit. It orbits the Pluto-Charon barycenter at a distance of
57,783 kilometers or 35,905 miles. It orbits between Nix and
Hydra and makes a complete orbit around Pluto roughly
every 32.127 days. It was supposed to be called Cerberus but
the name was taken, thus the Greek form of the name
Kerberos was acceptable to the IAU. Cerberus in Greek
mythology was a multi-headed dog that guarded the gates of
the underworld.

5. Hydra
It is the second largest moon of Pluto, with a
diameter of about 51 kilometers or 32 miles, slightly bigger than Nix. They were both discovered in 2005. It
was named after the nine-headed underworld serpent in Greek mythology.

It is the fifth and outermost moon of Pluto, orbiting beyond

Pluto’s fourth moon Kerberos. It has a highly reflective
surface caused by the presence of water ice, similar to other
plutonian moons.
Hydra is about 5.000 times fainter than Pluto. Hydra’s
rotation period was approximately 10 hours and its
rotational axis was tilted about 110 degrees to its orbit.
Hydra is the only plutonian moon that completes a rotation
in less than a day, making it the fastest.

Potential for Life

The surface of Pluto is extremely cold, so it seems unlikely that life could exist there. At such cold
temperatures, water, which is vital for life as we know it, is essentially rock-like. Pluto's interior is warmer,
however, and some think there could even be an ocean deep inside.

Key Facts & Summary

 It was the first Kuiper Belt object to be discovered and is the largest known plutoid. It was discovered
in 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh and was classified for 75 years as the ninth planet of the Solar System.
 Since the beginning of the 1990s, its status as a planet was questioned following the discovery of other
objects of similar size. After the discovery of Eris in 2005, Pluto was demoted in 2006 from a planet to
a dwarf planet after the IAU defined the term “planet”.
 Like other Kuiper Belt objects, it has an eccentric orbit. The eccentricity is moderate however and the
orbit is inclined as it ranges from 30 AU to 49 AU.
  Due to its orbit, Pluto periodically comes closer to the Sun than Neptune. A stable orbital resonance
with Neptune prevents them from colliding. The light from the Sun reaches Pluto in about 5.5 hours at
its average distance of 39.5 AU.
 It has five moons: Charon, Styx, Nix, Kerberos and Hydra. Charon is the largest with a diameter just
over half of Pluto. It is the biggest known moon of a dwarf planet.
 One day on Pluto lasts about 153 hours while a whole trip around the Sun is completed in about 248
years. Its moon Charon also orbits Pluto in about 153 hours never rising or setting, hovering around the
same spot facing Pluto with only one side, a state called tidal locking.

Did you know?

 The discoverer of Pluto, Clyde W. Tombaugh, had his ashes placed aboard the New Horizons
spacecraft.
 It was closer to the Sun than Neptune since 1979 until 1999.
 After Pluto was named, in 1941 Glenn T. Seaborg named a new element, plutonium after Pluto,
uranium after Uranus and neptunium after Neptune, following the tradition of naming an element
after a new planet was discovered.
 Walt Disney named a canine companion of Mikey Mouse, Pluto.
 Pluto’s moon Charon is bigger than the dwarf planet Eris.
 Pluto is the second closest dwarf planet to the sun, first place is held by Eris.
 Pluto is one third made out of water.

2. Eris

Eris is the most distant dwarf planet, located beyond the orbit of
Neptune. It was discovered in 2005 and was originally
classified as a planet. It is the second-largest dwarf planet
discovered and it led to both it and Pluto’s demotion
from planets to dwarf planets.

Key Facts & Summary

 It was discovered in 2005 by a team of astronomers led
by Mike Brown and announced in the same day
as Makemake, and two days after Haumea.
 It is the most distant discovered dwarf planet from
the Sun and has the greatest mass of the five dwarf planets.
 It was nicknamed Xena by the team, and later named Eris, after the ancient Greek goddess of discord
and strife. The name fits since Eris remains at the center of a scientific debate about the definition of a
planet. It also led to Pluto’s demotion from a planet to a dwarf planet.
 It is the second largest dwarf planet, almost as big as Pluto. When Pluto was still considered a planet,
and Eris was discovered, it was considered to be the 10th planet of the Solar System.
 Though a bit smaller than Pluto, it exceeds Pluto’s mass by about 28%.
  It has an average distance of 68 AU away from the Sun. Its actual distance can be checked online, as
Eris is constantly tracked.
 Its apparent magnitude of 18.7 makes it bright enough to be detected by amateur telescopes.
 It doesn’t have rings, nothing is known about its magnetosphere but it does have a moon named
Dysnomia after the demon goddess of lawlessness and the daughter of Eris.
 It takes about 558 Earth years for Eris to make one trip around the Sun. As it orbits the Sun, it
completes one rotation every 25.9 hours.
 The plane of Eris’s orbit is well out of the plane of the Solar System’s planets and extends far beyond
the Kuiper Belt thus beyond the orbit of Neptune, located in a region called the scattered disk.
 Like Pluto, it’s a little smaller than Earth’s moon. It has a radius of about 722 miles or 1,163 kilometers,
thus 1/5 the radius of Earth.
Moons
Eris has one known satellite, a moon that was discovered in 2005, and was named Dysnomia, after the
daughter of the goddess Eris.

By the time of its discovery, Eris still had the

nickname Xena, after a warrior princess in a TV
show. The princesses’ sidekick was named Gabrielle,
and thus the moon was nicknamed after the
sidekick. However, since the IAU officially decided to
name the dwarf planet Eris, its satellite’s name also
had to be changed and thus received the name
Dysnomia.
Dysnomia
Dysnomia is the second known largest moon of a dwarf planet. The first place is held by Pluto’s moon
Charon. It was discovered after the adaptive optics team in Hawaii carried out observations using a newly
commissioned laser guide star adaptive optics system. It is believed to have been formed after a collision.
It is speculated to be made completely out of ice. It has a diameter of about 700 +/- 115 km, an albedo
of 0.04 +0.02/-0.01, and a semi major axis of 37,460 kilometers or 23,276 miles. Its nearly circular orbit lasts
about 16 days. Spectrum analysis indicates it has very dark colored surface, very different from Eris.

Did you know?

 Eris is currently in the Cetus constellation and it will enter the Pisces constellation in 2036.
 It isn’t always the most distant dwarf planet. At its furthest point from the Sun is reaches outside the
Kuiper Belt, yet at its closest point it is much closer to the Sun than Pluto, when Pluto is at its furthest.
 It is currently at its furthest point away from the Sun. Because of its distance any atmosphere it might
have had, would have frozen and fell to the surface as snow. But as it will get closer to the Sun in about
247 years, its icy surface will sublimate, creating a new tenuous atmosphere.
 It is believed that Eris was originally located inside the Kuiper Belt, but due to gravitational interactions
with Neptune, as the Solar System was forming, the dwarf planet was forced out into the scattered disc
region.
 Its gravity is 11 times weaker than that of Earth, making a person eleven times weigh less.
  Though its gravity is weak compared to earth, Eris has the strongest gravity out of all the dwarf planets:
0.82 m/s².
 Eris’s moon orbits ten times closer its parent planet than Earth’s moon.

3. Makemake

Makemake is the second furthest dwarf planet from the Sun located beyond Neptune’s orbit.
Discovered in 2005, it is the third-largest known dwarf planet.

Key Facts & Summary

 It was discovered on March 31, 2005, by a team of astronomers at the Palomar Observatory who also
discovered the dwarf planet Eris.
 Its discovery along with that of Eris and Haumea contributed to Pluto’s
reclassification as a planet to a dwarf planet.
 It was the fourth dwarf planet to be discovered. This included Pluto
who was reclassified.
 Makemake has one satellite, a dim lightened moon that was named MK
2.
 Makemake is large enough and bright enough to be studied by high-end
amateur telescopes.
 Makemake is about a fifth as bright as Pluto. It is dimmer than Pluto yet brighter
than Eris.
 Makemake has a radius of about 444 miles or 715 kilometers, it’s 1/9 the radius of Earth.
Like other dwarf planets, it travels through the Kuiper Belt.
 A day on Makemake lasts about 22.5 hours.
 Makemake is about 45.8 AU away from the sun and about 53.2 AU away from Earth, however, these
values are constantly and rapidly changing, for an accurate and present statistic one can check its
location online as Makemake is constantly tracked.
 It takes about 7 hours and 22 minutes for Makemake’s light to reach Earth.
 It is the second furthest dwarf planet from the Sun and the third-largest known dwarf planet in the
Solar System.

Moons
Makemake has one natural moon that was nicknamed MK 2. It was discovered in 2016 by the Hubble
Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3. There is however speculation that it could have a second
undiscovered satellite, which would explain its unusually long rotation.

MK 2 is estimated to be around 175 kilometers in diameter for an assumed albedo of 4%, and around
90 kilometers in radius. Its orbital period is around 12 days. It is estimated that it that its semi-major axis is at
least 21.000 kilometers from Makemake. The actual orbit eccentricity is unknown. In fact, this is quite
surprising as Makemake is the second brightest known object in the Kuiper belt, while its discovered moon is
about 1.300 times fainter.

Did you know?

 Makemake is approaching its aphelion, it is estimated to happen in 2033.
 Makemake is a classical Kuiper belt object, meaning that its orbit lies far enough from Neptune to
remain stable over the edge of the Solar System.
 Clyde Tombaugh, the astronomer who discovered Pluto in 1930, was one step away from also claiming
the discovery of Makemake. Makemake was bright enough to be discovered by Clyde, however the
dwarf planet was at the moment a few degrees from the ecliptic, this position made it impossible to be
seen.
 Though it is 53.2 AU away from Earth, its closest approach will happen in 2100 being about 47 AU
away.
 The public declaration of its discovery was hastened by the fact that another team of astronomers in
Spain, declared the discovery of the dwarf planet Haumea, whom the team in San Diego were already
tracking.
 The discovery of Makemake,Eris and Haumea were responsible for Pluto’s drop in status from a planet
to a dwarf planet. In 2006 the International Astronomical Union created the new category of bodies
named “dwarf planets”. This also shaped the classifications needed in order for an object to be
considered a planet: A planet circles the sun but isn’t orbiting anything else, it must be large enough to
be rounded by its own gravity, and it has cleared its neighborhood of orbiting bodies.

4. Haumea

Haumea is the fastest rotating dwarf planet with the most interesting/controversial shape. It is located
beyond the orbit of Neptune. It was discovered in 2004 and is the fourth largest dwarf planet.

Key Facts & Summary

 It was discovered in 2004 by team of astronomers led by Mike Brown and in 2005 by a team led by Luiz
Moreno, though the latter claim was contested.
 Mike Brown’s team first nicknamed the object “Santa” among themselves, since it was discovered just
after Christmas time in 2004. However, since
they did not publicly announced the discovery,
the other team from Spain were first to file a
claim for it in 2005. After disputes were
resolved, the IAU gave credit to the Spanish
team. However, Brown’s team proposed name
for the object was the one who got accepted.
  However, it was officially recognized as dwarf planet in 2008 by the International Astronomical Union.
 Haumea’s shape is a bit controversial and thus the reason for its late proclamation as a dwarf planet.
 It is shaped like an egg thus making it the least spherical of all the dwarf planets.
 Along with its weird shape it also rotates quite fast and displays large fluctuations of brightness. Its
speedy rotation is considered to be the fastest among all the known equilibrium bodies in the Solar
System.
 Most rotating bodies in equilibrium are flattened into oblate spheroids but Haumea rotates so quickly
that it is distorted into a trixial ellipsoid.
 Haumea has two known moons that were named Hi’iaka and Namaka.
 It is believed that Haumea’s shape, quick rotation, high albedo and its two moons, are consequences of
a giant collision.
 Haumea and its moons were named after the Hawaiian goddess of childbirth. The goddess Haumea
had two children: Hi’iaka and Namaka.
 Haumea also has a ring system. Haumea is the first trans-Neptunian object discovered to have a ring
system.
 Because Haumea has two moons, its mass can be calculated, and it was estimated to be one-third that
of Pluto or 1/1400 that of Earth.
 Due to its fast rotation, a day on Haumea lasts about 3.9 hours.
 It takes about 285 Earth-years for Haumea to make a complete orbit around the sun.
 Haumea in its perihelion point is about 35 AU away from the Sun while at its aphelion point, about 50
AU. In relation to Earth it is currently 51.2 AU away while its light is reflected back at us in about 7
hours.
 Its surface is believed to be made out of rock and thick coating ice.
 It is the third brightest object in the Kuiper Belt, and can sometimes be seen with a good telescope.

In Hawaiian mythology, Haumea is the goddess of fertility and thus childbirth. After its moons were
discovered, the dwarf planet was named Haumea, and its moons were named after two of Haumea’s children.
The reason for this was because the moons were discovered by the Keck Observatory in Mauna Kea, Hawaii.
Thus the astronomers wanted to honor the place.

Moons
Two moons were discovered by Darin Ragozzine and Michel Brown in 2005. It is believed that both moons are
fragments of Haumea.
Hi’iaka
Was first nicknamed “Rudolf” by the Caltech team
and discovered in January 26, 2005. It is the bigger
moon at roughly 310 kilometers in diameter. It is also
brighter than Namaka. It orbits Haumea in a nearly
circular path every 49 days. Infrared spectrum
analysis determined that it is also covered with pure
crystalline ice.
Namaka
It was first nicknamed “Blitzen” and it was discovered on June 30 2005. Namaka is the smaller, inner satellite
of Haumea, being a tenth of the mass of Hi’iaka. It orbits Haumea in 18 days in a highly elliptical, non-
Keplerian orbit. At present, the orbits of Haumean moons appear almost exactly edge-on Earth, with Namaka
periodically hiding-occulting, Haumea.

Haumea’s ring
The ring was discovered in 2017 after a stellar occultation occurred. The ring has a width of approximately 70
kilometers or 40 miles wide, an opacity of 0.5, and is at a radius of 2,287 kilometers from the dwarf planet.
The ring is in the same plane with Haumea’s equator and the orbit of its smaller moon Hi’iaka.

Haumea is the only known dwarf planet to have a ring. It is also the most distant object of the known Solar
System to possess one.

Did you know?

 Haumea is the largest member of its collisional family, a group of astronomical objects with similar
physical and orbital characteristics thought to have formed when a larger progenitor was shattered by
an impact.
 The closest approach of Haumea to Earth will happen in 2100, at a distance of 36.6 AU.
 Gravity on Haumea is about 4.5% the strength of Earth’s.
 Of the five dwarf planets currently recognized, Haumea is the fourth largest dwarf planet.
 It is one of the fastest spinning objects in the Solar System.
 If a person weighing 70 kilograms would land on Haumea, the effects of its gravity would make that
person weigh 3 kilograms.
 If you were on Haumea and look up in the sky, you would probably see no sky, no atmosphere because
its gravity can’t hold on to an atmosphere.
 Haumea’s biggest moon Hi’iaka is eight times more close to Haumea than our moon is to Earth.

5. Ceres

Ceres is a dwarf planet, and the only who isn’t located in the Kuiper Belt but rather in the inner solar
system in the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Discovered in 1801, it was considered a
planet for a year, and then an asteroid, the first of its kind until 2006, when it was classified as of dwarf planet
being the smallest of them.

Key Facts & Summary

 Ceres is the first dwarf planet to receive a visit from a spacecraft.
 It is the only dwarf planet located in the inner solar system.
 It does not have any moons or rings, and scientist believe that it also lacks a magnetosphere.
 It was first considered a planet, then it was demoted to asteroid, the first of its kind, and then it was
classified as a dwarf planet.
 From 1802 to 2006 it was considered the largest asteroid in the Solar System.
  It was discovered in 1801 by Italian astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi, who also gave it its name Ceres
Ferdinandea.
 The name was changed to Ceres, the roman goddess of agriculture.
 Unlike other asteroids, Ceres is round because it is large enough for gravity to mold its shape into a
sphere.
 Its composition lends itself to the formation of life as we know it. Its prospects for life are positive.

Did you know?

 Between 2013 and 2100, the closest approach of
Ceres to Earth is speculated to happen in 2032 at a
distance of approximately 1.6 Astrological Units.
 Piazzi originally wanted to name Ceres, Cerere
Ferdinandae. The reason for this was because he
wanted to honor the roman goddess of agriculture,
Cerere in Italian, who was believed to have
originated in Sicily, the oldest temple of her being
there. The second term Ferdinandae, was to honor the then king of Sicily, Ferdinand.
 Ferdinandae however, was not acceptable to other nations, and it was thus dropped. Ceres remained,
but for a short time in Germany it was called Hera, in modern Greek Demeter, while the other
languages used a variation of Ceres/Cerere with the exception of Chinese which use the calque “grain-
god (dess) star” or gushenxing.
 The word cereal comes from the same name of Ceres.
 The rare-earth element Cerium was named after Ceres but it was later renamed to palladium after the
second asteroid Pallas.
 Ceres remained classified as a planet in astronomy books for half a century.
 Ceres holds the title of the smallest dwarf planet in our Solar System, however recent discoveries imply
that there may be a new dwarf planet even smaller named Hygiea. Hygiea was discovered in 1849 and
classified as an asteroid. But recent observations may reveal that it is in fact a dwarf planet.
 Ceres is the only known dwarf planet that isn’t located in the Kuiper Belt.

SAQ #4: Describe the different dwarf planets in our solar system and their satellites. (5 points)
Summary:

 Comets are sometimes called dirty snowballs or “icy mudballs”. They are a mixture of ices (both water
and frozen gases) and dust that for some reason didn’t get incorporated into planets when the solar
system was formed. This makes them very interesting as samples of the early history of the solar
system.
 Comets have several distinct parts: nucleus ,coma, hydrogen cloud ,dust tail and ion tail.
 Meteoroids are objects in space that range in size from dust grains to small asteroids. Think of them as
“space rocks." Most are pieces of other, larger bodies that have been broken or blasted off. Some
come from comets, others from asteroids, and some even come from the Moon and other planets.
Some meteoroids are rocky, while others are metallic, or combinations of rock and metal.
  Asteroids are rocky worlds revolving around the sun that are too small to be called planets. They are
also known as planetoids or minor planets. There are millions of asteroids, ranging in size from
hundreds of miles to several feet across. In total, the mass of all the asteroids is less than that of
Earth's moon.
 A“dwarf planet” is a celestial body that is in orbit around the Sun. There are 5 officially recognised
dwarf planets in our solar system, they are Ceres, Pluto, Haumea, Makemake and Eris.

REFERENCES

 https://nineplanets.org/comets/
 https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/asteroids-comets-and-meteors/meteors-and-meteorites/in-depth/
 https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9975-top-10-comets/#faq11
 https://nineplanets.org/asteroids/
 https://www.space.com/51-asteroids-formation-discovery-and-exploration.html
 https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/asteroids-comets-and-meteors/asteroids/in-depth/
 https://nineplanets.org/asteroid-belt/
 http://www.whillyard.com/science-pages/our-solar-system/largest-asteroids.html
 https://space-facts.com/dwarf-planets/
 https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/dwarf-planets/pluto/overview/
 https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/dwarf-planets/pluto/in-depth/
 https://nineplanets.org/pluto/
 https://nineplanets.org/eris/
 https://nineplanets.org/makemake/
 https://nineplanets.org/haumea/
 https://nineplanets.org/ceres/

ASSIGNMENT
Make an infographic design about other members of the solar system. Afterwards, post it in your
facebook account and make a caption above it to encourage others to read your work.
 SHEPHERDVILLE COLLEGE
(FORMERLY JESUS THE LOVING SHEPHERD CHRISTIAN COLLEGE)
Talojongon, Tigaon, Camarines Sur, Philippines
Tel. No. (054) 884-9536
“Excellence in truth in the service of God and Country”

Name: ____________________________________________Course/Year/Sec: ________________ Date: ____________

Competency # 14 Answer Sheet

Other Members of the Solar System: Comets, Meteors and Asteroids
Dwarf Planets

SAQ #1: What are the possible effects of the comets hitting the earth? How does the activity of the nucleus
change as the comet approaches the sun? (5 points)

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SAQ #2: Differentiate meteoroid from meteors and meteorites. How do meteor showers occur? Discuss the
significance of meteorites that have been found on earth? (5 points)
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SAQ #3: How do the asteroids being classified? Discuss the possible effects once the large asteroids hit the
earth. (5 points)
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SAQ #4: Describe the different dwarf planets in our solar system and their satellites. (5 points)
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ASSIGNMENT
Make an infographic design about other members of the solar system. Afterwards, post it in your
facebook account and make a caption above it to encourage others to read your work.