National College Iasi Near Space Objects

National College Iasi Learn about NEOs Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) are comets, meteorids and asteroids that have been nudged by the gravitational attraction of nearby planets into orbits that allow them to enter the Earth's neighborhood.

National College Iasi Asteroids Asteroids are rocky and metallic objects that orbit the Sun but are too small to be considered planets. They are known as minor planets.

National College Iasi Near Earth Asteroids Amors cross Mars' orbit but do not quite cross Earth's orbit. Eros, which was visited by the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) spacecraft, is an Amor. More than 1,500 Amors are known. Apollos are Earth orbit- crossing asteroids with orbit periods that are longer than one year. Asteroid Geographos is an Apollo. More than 1,700 Apollos are known. Atens cross Earth's orbit with an orbital period less than 1 year. Roughly 300 Atens are known.

National College Iasi Comets Comets are small, fragile, irregularly shaped bodies composed of a mixture of non-volatile grains and frozen gases. They have highly elliptical orbits that bring them very close to the Sun and swing them deeply into space, often beyond the orbit of Pluto. -In the image you can see the structure of a comet

National College Iasi Meteorids A meteoroid is a piece of stone-like or metal-like debris which travels in outer space. Most meteoroids are no bigger than a pebble.meteoroid debris If you have ever seen a "falling star", you were actually seeing a meteor. Isn't that amazing? Meteoroids burn up in the atmosphere and fall to the Earth as dust. Every day, approximately 3000 metric tons of dusty space material falls to Earth.Meteoroids atmospheremetric tons In Greenland, people dig up meteorites and use the iron in them to make tools. meteorites

National College Iasi Meteoroids travel around the sun in a variety of orbits and at various velocities. The fastest ones move at about 26 miles per second (42 kilometers per second) through space in the vicinity of Earth's orbit.

National College Iasi Impacts rate The rate of impacts of objects of at least 1 km in diameter is estimated as 2 per million years. Assuming that this rate will continue for the next billion years, there exist at least 2,000 objects of diameter greater than 1 km that will eventually hit Earth Historic impacts 1908a stony asteroid exploded over Tunguskastony asteroidexploded over Tunguska 2002On June 6, 2002 an object with an estimated diameter of 10 meters collided with Earth. 2008This is the first time that an asteroid impact on Earth has been accurately predicted.

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