Asteroids

Asteroids

What are they?

Asteroids are solid pieces of rock that have been
left around the Solar System from the time when
the planets formed.
They range in size from one metre ( or perhaps
smaller ) up to 1000 km.
Asteroids are quite irregular in shape and
therefore the light they reflect from
the Sun fluctuates as they move
and rotate.

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What do they look like ?

We have never seen any asteroids close up
but in a telescope they look like a tiny point
of light.
Unlike comets, they
have no cloud of diffuse
light around them.
Because they are very cold they dont emit much
radiation themselves but they can be seen by
very sensitive Infra-Red telescopes such as ISO.

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Asteroids are very irregular in shape as

these pictures taken from a spacecraft
nearby show.

They are quite similar to small

planets or moons like Phobos

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How Many Are There?

Recent surveys using Infra-Red telescopes indicates
that in the main Asteroid belt around the Sun there are
at least 1.1 million asteroids larger than 1 km.

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Different types
By studying both the
brightness and the
reflectivity of certain
colours it becomes
clear that asteroids
fall into several
different groups.
M are believed to be
metallic
C are thought to be
carbonaceous
S contain more
silicates

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Where are they?

Asteroids circle around the

Sun in orbits that trace their
origins in the Solar System.
The orbits of asteroids are
more or less circular and they
have orbital periods of three to
six years.
Not all orbits around the Sun
are populated with asteroids
because the motion of the
main planets interferes with
some orbits and makes them
unstable for asteroids.
The majority of asteroids are in
the Asteroid Belt with
distances from the Sun
between 2.2 and 3.2
astronomical units.

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Detection

Looking for asteroids in a telescope requires a

search for objects which move from one night to the
next and are point
like in appearance.
To be sure that it is an
asteroid rather than a
planet or comet, enough
observations must be
taken to be able to
measure the mathematical parameters of the orbit.

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Are Asteroids Safe?

Asteroids pass through the Solar System in their
orbits, which can change with time as they are
affected by passing planets.
If an asteroid was deflected from its orbit onto a path
that intersected that of the Earth, the results would be
very serious.
An object 100km across hitting the Earth at 20
km/sec would could immense damage.

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Have they hit us before ?

Many scientists
believe that asteroids
have hit the Earth
many times
in its history.

Artists impression of a
giant asteroid impact

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Because the effect of such a collision would be so dramatic,

the signs of this can be seen in the geological record
sometimes as huge craters.

An event of this kind may

have caused the
atmospheric and climatic
disturbance which led to
the destruction of the
dinosaurs.