Name
Date
Core
Topic: Comets, Asteroids, and Meteors
(Ch. 9.5) pg 322
What is a comet?
‘longhaired star’
Anatomy of a comet
Large ‘dirty snowball,’ collection of loose ice, dust, and small rocky particles whose orbits are usually long, narrow ellipses
Coma: clouds of gas and dust form a fuzzy outer layer
Nucleus: solid inner core of comet
Tail: point away from the sun, heated up gas and dust from comet
Kuiper
Belt
Doughnut-shaped region that extends from beyond Neptune’s orbit to about
100 times Earth’s distance from the sun
Oort
Cloud
Spherical region of comets that surrounds the solar system out to more than 1000 time the distance between Pluto and the sun
Asteroid Too small and too numerous to be planets but they orbit the sun

Name
Date
Core
Where to find
Asteroids?
They revolve around the sun between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter….a.k.a.
Meteoroid Chunk of rock or dust in space, comes from comets or asteroids
Meteor Meteoroid enters Earth’s atmosphere, friction with the air creates heat and produces a streak of light in the sky
Meteorites Meteoroids that pass through Earth’s atmosphere and hit Earth’s surface, formed moon craters
SUMMARY: