Asteroids, Comets, and Meteors

What is an Asteroid?

• A small rocky body orbiting the sun, mostly found in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

• A large ball of gas that emits light and heat.

• A frozen mass of ice and dust that orbits the sun in a long, elliptical path.

• A natural satellite that orbits a planet.

What is a Dust tail (of a comet)?

What is the Kuiper belt?

• A region of the solar system beyond Neptune, containing many small icy bodies and dwarf planets.

• A belt of asteroids located between Earth and Mars.

• A ring of gas surrounding the Sun.

• A region of intense magnetic storms on Jupiter.

Tags

NGSS.MS-ESS1-3

What is a Meteor?

What is a Meteorite?

What is a Meteoroid?

What is a Nucleus (of a comet)?

What is the Oort cloud?

• A theoretical cloud of icy bodies that exists at the outermost regions of the solar system, believed to be the source of long-period comets.

• A region of intense radiation surrounding Jupiter.

• A belt of asteroids located between Mars and Jupiter.

• A layer of Earth's atmosphere where auroras occur.

Tags

NGSS.MS-ESS1-2

NGSS.MS-ESS1-3

What are Trojan asteroids?

• Asteroids that share an orbit with a larger planet, such as Jupiter, but do not collide with it because they gather around two special places in the orbit called Lagrange points.

• Asteroids that are found only in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

• Asteroids that travel in highly elliptical orbits around the Sun.

• Asteroids that frequently collide with planets in the solar system.

Near-Earth objects (NEO) include all small ______ bodies that move near Earth.

• orbiting

• stationary

• burning

• falling