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Meteoroids--small rocky or metallic particles throughout the solar system Meteors-- entering Earths atmosphere, friction causes heat and disintegration -Meteorites--remnants surviving the fall to hit the ground
Many meteor showers are associated with comets, but most of these are small particles that burn up in the atmosphere.
Meteor showers are caused by Comets! Many meteor showers are Comets path associated with comets. Earth
The dust tail contains small particles evaporated from the comet.
Types of Meteorites
Meteors are: Early solar system leftovers
Iron 4% (from core of differentiated asteroids) Stony 95% (from surface of differentiated asteroids) Stony-iron (from undifferentiated asteroids) Rare class of Stony Carbonatious Chondrites- C, Si, Mg covered with dark carbon organic compounds, maybe primordial Material.
Meteorite Types
Stony
Carbonaceous
A specialty of some carbonaceous meteorites is the evidence that they have been processed by liquid water.
We believe the parent meteorite bodies must have been sufficiently warm and pressured at some period in history for liquid water to flow.
The Barringer crater, also called the Meteorite Crater in Arizona was formed by the impact 50,000 years ago of a 300,000 ton iron meteorite.
The crater is 550 feet deep and nearly a mile wide. About 30 tons of iron have been recovered from the surrounding plains.
Ages of Rocks
The technique used today to measure the ages of rocks is radioactive or radioisotope dating. The advent of radioactive dating of rocks once and for all set geological timescales on an absolute, as opposed to a relative basis.
Some of the falling rocks from space survive the trip through the atmosphere
Aphelion distance 2.3 AU Diameter 3 to 10 m Seen at height of ~50 km skipped out of atmosphere
Asteroids
Main Belt
The so-called Main Belt of asteroids lie between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, with semimajor axes 2.2 to 3.3 AU.
There are about Facts About Asteroids 150,000 asteroids Total mass < Moon cataloged.
In spite of what this diagram might imply, the asteroid belt is relatively empty.
The average distance between any 2 is more than 1 million km.
Asteroid orbits
Asteroids, like planets, have orbits close to ecliptic plane, small tilt, and nearly circular orbits. Asteroids are basically chunks of rock left over from the formation of the solar system. As Jupiter formed it stirred up velocities in what would become the asteroid belt.
Higher velocities meant planetesimals destroying each other rather than accreting.
Asteroid Composition
Three types based on appearance and Composition C : carbon & silicates
Very dark, primitive (old)
S : stony
No carbon, lighter appearance Abundance of silicates M : metal (iron) Remnants of the core of shattered larger body We probably now know almost all of the asteroids larger than 25 km across, and 50% of the ones down to 10 km in size.
Orbits: Gaps
In the main belt, orbital distances are not distributed evenly. The gaps in the orbital distances are known as resonance, or Kirkwood gaps. The resonance effect is the gravity of Jupiter: the tugs from Jupiter s gravity eventually altered the orbit.
There are five Lagrangian points, but in terms of asteroids, the L4 and L5 points equidistant from Jupiter and the Sun are most important. These are regions of gravitational stability for small bodies in the fields of two larger bodies.
The first was The L4 and L5 points of Jupiter are named Hektor occupied by hundreds of asteroids. and all others named after heroes of the Trojan War. Hence, these asteroids are named Trojan Asteroids. They are primitive bodies, trapped there since the birth of Jupiter.
Near-Earth Objects
Only about 1% of asteroids cross the Earths orbit, but we are very interested in them! The first one discovered was Apollo in 1948: for this reason Earth-crossing asteroids are called Apollo asteroids. The largest Earth-crosser is Eros (30 km).
S-Type
Galileo encountered Ida on August 28, 1993, finding an irregular body 58x24x21 km in size. The main discovery was that Ida is accompanied by a small moon, Dactyl, the first natural satellite of an asteroid ever discovered.
Close up of Eros
Earth Impacts
Classify events by size Small Medium Large Small:
Happens all the time, most are very tiny (pea sized) Will burn up or break up in the atmosphere Meteors! (Shooting stars) 3-5/hr on a typical night
100 tons per day Meteor showers & storms From the trail of a comet, each shower happens once every year
Night skies in Western Europe were bright enough to read a book by the light. The impactor was probably a comet 30 m across.
The K Impact 60 % of all species on Earth disappeared, including the dinosaurs, 65 my ago, at the end of the Cretaceous (K) period.
Clay layer of that age over much of world has high Iridium levels Iridium is rare in earths crust, but is common in asteroids and (sort of) in comets
Comets - History
66 Fall of Jerusalem 451 Rise of Attila the Hun 1066 Norman conquest of England 1456 Turks invade Europe; Pope prays for deliverance from the Turk, and the comet Once believed to be atmospheric phenomena Tycho Brahe proved they were not atmospheric 1700 & 1758 Edmond Halley predicts return of Halleys comet, & comet returns on schedule 1835 & 1910 Mark Twain & Halleys comet Usually get one bright comet per decade
Comet of 1577
A comet is a great blob of ice and dust, a dirty snowball. A comet far from the sun has only a nucleus. The ice ball may be anywhere from 1 mile to a dozen miles in diameter. As the comet gets closer to the sun , solar heat vaporizes more and more of the frozen gases, and it spews out into space, blowing some dust out also. The gas and dust form a form a hazy cloud around the nucleus called the Coma.
Nucleus (~ 1 km 20 km)
Dirty snowball (icy composition)
Comet Nuclei
Thought to be ice, but mostly Hydrogen is observed. Darker than coal. Jets of gas and dust venting from core are observed.
Comets often have 2 tails pointing away from the sun Type 1 is the gas tail straight with emission lines. (Ion) Type 2 is the dust trail curved with reflection spectra
tails, may be > AU long
Comets
Ion Tail
Dust Tail
Comet orbits
Comets have the most eccentric (elliptical) orbits of any solar system object,they spend most of their time far from Sun. Comet's orbital plane can have any tilt (inclination) relative to ecliptic plane. Prograde orbit is in same direction as planets orbit and Retrograde orbit is in opposite direction .Comet orbits are equally divided between prograde and retrograde.
originate mainly in the Kuiper Belt (Ki-per) ices some what processed by the Sun
Example: Halleys comet
(Ki-per)
In 1951 Gerard Kuiper speculated that there was material farther out than Pluto, from which certain comets originated. These objects are typically 10 to 100 km in diameter, Hundreds are now known.
Shoemaker-Levy-9 in 1993
SL-9 passed close to Jupiter (within Roche limit) in July 1992 Gravitational forces pulled the comet apart into fragments Each fragment on slightly different orbit, headed back towards Jupiter Impacts on Jupiter over period 16 22 July 1994
First real opportunity to watch large impacts happen and with ~1 year advance notice. Impacts into atmosphere not into surface
The End
( A possibility)