B E RS

M E M
H E R L A R
OT H E S O
OF T M
S T E
SY
Meteoroids are solid, rocklike objects that revolve
around the sun.
Meteoroids that enter the Earth’s atmosphere and
burn up are called meteors.
Where do meteors come from?

Scientists believed that meteors could have been

interplanetary debris or displaced objects
from the asteroid belt.

Asteroid belt is the gap between the planets Mars and

Jupiter where most asteroids are believed to
be located.
A meteorite is a meteoroid that actually reaches
the Earth’s surface.

TYPES OF
METEOROIDS:
⮚ Iron meteoroid – made of nickel and iron
⮚ Stony meteoroid – made of sandlike material
⮚ Stony-iron meteoroid – combination of the two
types, consists of both silicate and iron
Iron meteoroid

Stony meteoroid
Stony-iron meteoroid
Meteorite impacts on Earth produce tektites.
Tektites consist of fragments of glass
that have strange chemical composition with
several peculiar shapes. They are
found only in certain locations on Earth.

Comet is a chunk of ice, gas, and dust that orbits the

sun in a long, narrow elliptical orbit.
PARTS OF A
COMET:
⮚ nucleus
⮚ coma
⮚ tail

When a comet is far away from the sun, the temperature

is low and the nucleus is the whole comet. But as it
approaches near the sun, it warms and glows.
A hazy cloud of dust and gas – coma – forms around the
nucleus. The coma is made up of gases emitted from the
nucleus due to its warming by the sun.
As the comet nears the sun and is heated, the solar wind
blows the dust and gases of the coma, forming the tail.

The tail is usually long, curved and diffused in appearance.

Its length depends upon thedistance of the comet from the
sun. It is longest when the comet is closest to the sun.
 The tail of the comet points away from the sun because of
the solar wind.

Since the tail is made up of gases and dust, it is pushed away

from the coma by the pressure of solar radiation and solar
particles.
A comet’s tail has two types, a dust tail and an ion tail.

The dust tail usually shows the path of the comet. The ion
tail is the result of the interaction of ion particles with the
sun’s force of sunlight.

Some comets crash into the sun or they get so close

that they burn up, these comets are called sungrazers.
A comet has no light of its own. It can be seen
because of the reflection of the sun‘s light off of the
comet and because the gas molecules in the coma
release energy absorbed from the sun’s rays.

Most comets originate in the Oort Cloud – the vast cloud

of comets that surrounds the solar system. Its existence
was suggested by a Dutch astronomer named Jan Oort. It
is also called Kuiper Belt.
A comet whose final orbital path take less than 200 years,
the comet is classified as a short-period comet.

If the orbit takes more than 200 years, then it is called a

long-term comet.
Halley’s comet named after Sir Edmond Halley
appears every 76 years.
Asteroids are chunks of rocks or fragments of
planetlike material of varying sizes floating in
space.
Astronomers believed that the
asteroids in the asteroid belt
may be materials that never
formed into a planet because
Jupiter’s strong gravity kept
the asteroids
from coming together.