(What our Solar System is made of) By Ms. Nguyen

 Huge boulders made of iron and nickel (metal)  Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter (divides the inner and outer planets)  Comes in ALL different sizes  Not all asteroids stay in belt  Astronomers track them to avoid collision with Earth.  Collisions are NOT very likely to happen

 Shooting stars or falling stars  A piece of rock or clump of dirt floating around in space  Orbit the sun  Most are the size of a grain of sand  Billions and Billions of them  Pieces of rock and dust that melt off comets as they come close to the sun

 When a meteoroid enters Earth’s atmosphere  Most vaporize and completely burn off before hitting the ground

 When a meteor hit the ground or shatter above the ground

 GIANT, dirty snowballs in space  Made of frozen gases with tiny piece mixed rocks and dust  Stays in space orbiting the Sun  Something needs to hit it for it to fall out of orbit  Some fall into the sun and are destroyed  Some fly away never to be seen again  Some fall into a new orbit

 Orbits the sun once every 76 years  Last seen in 1986  When is the next time you will see it?

 As it approach the sun, it begins to melt  Then all the gas vapor and dust are blown away from the nucleus (head) by solar wind  Creating a tail  Tail of comet always points AWAY from the sun  So sometimes it may appear to fly backwards