Lunar eclipse
Wed. Oct. 8

http://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/in/usa
/detroit
SPACE ROCKS
pages 595-599
Coming to a planet near you….
Comet fun!

http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/co
mets/comet_model_interactive.html
Comets
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Made of rock, ices
and tars
Snowy dirtballs
Two tails: 1)made
of gases (straight,
dim) and 2)rocks
(curved, bright)
Tails only seen
when close to sun
Coma- “head” of
comet
Comet Halley
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Perihelion 2062
Last seen in 1986
Seen every 76 years
Hale-Bopp
1997
Comet Kohoutek.
NASA
Comet Siding Springs

http://mars.nasa.gov/comets/sidingspring/
The Oort Cloud

Forms a spherical
shell around solar
system
Home to long
period comets
> 200 years

The Kuiper Belt
Home to shortperiod comets
< 200years
Orbit on the same
plane as planets
Donut shaped

Stardust mission
Landed on a comet
 Brought sample back to earth!
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Stardust
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Stardust rendezvoused
with Comet Wild 2 on
January 2, 2004.
Stardust uses aerogel
to collect and trap
comet and solar wind
particles.
Stardust Sample Return
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The sample landed in the
Utah desert January 15,
2006.
Only sample return
mission expect Apollo
Found water and carbon
Making a Deep Impact
The mission will
blow a footballfield sized crater
( 7 stories deep) in
Comet Tempel 1
on July 4, 2005.
 This will be our
first look at the
fresh inside
layers of a comet.
 Found water ice
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What Kind of Impact ?
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370 kg Copper impactor
(816 lbs.).
Impact speed – 10.2 km/s
Energy released – 18
gigajoules = (4.5 tons of
TNT).
Impactor must hit an area
less than 6 km (3.7 miles) in
diameter from about 864,000
km (536,865 miles) away.
Let’s take a look-
Deep Impact mission
Impacted a comet
 Baby step in destroying space rocks
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Left over planet
materials
Rock material
From Galileo

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Must be IN SPACE
Most are small

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A meteoroid burning up in
the atmosphere
When many are burning=
meteor shower

Hits earth

Three Groups:

Stony (chondrite)- rock
like

Iron- metallic appearance

Stony-Iron- both!
Russia meteorite 2/15/13
Meteor crater, AZ
Meteor crater
why are craters rare on Earth?
Craters are rare on Earth
because….

Atmosphere burns them up

They get eroded away
ASU meteorite lab
Smithsonian meteorites
Worden Meteorite

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Fell in 1997 in Ann
Arbor
Through a garage
1550 grams
Titicaca Crater
Sept. 15, 2007
Titicaca meteorite
chondrite
NASA - Asteroid Will Miss In 2019 End Of World On Hold

The announcement that 2019 is a non-starter
was made after further observations by NASA's
Near-Earth Objects Office. But they said a
remote chance remained that the two-kilometrewide space rock, known as 2002 NT7, could
crash into our planet in 2060. Astronomers
initially spotted the asteroid on 5 July, through
the Linear Observatory's automated sky survey
programme in New Mexico, and early
calculations showed it was due to hit our planet
on 1 February, 2019.
NEO’S

Near Earth Objects
http://www.spaceweather.com/