1. Comets, Asteroids & Meteors

2. Comets Orbit the sun, far away “Dirty Snowballs” ½ to 3 miles wide
Composed of frozen ice, dust and gases
Dust forms a cloud called a coma
Tail created by melting ice and dust
More than 800 known comets
Originate from Oort Cloud and Kuiper Belt
Halley’s comet is the most famous
Rarely seen in the sky…
Comet of the century?
Comets

3. Asteroids Travel mainly between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter
Diameters range from 3 feet to 600 miles
Thousands discovered
Made of dark, rocky material
Difficult to see in sky
Jupiter’s gravitational pull sometimes causes collisions, these collisions create meteors
Asteroids

4. Meteors Made of dust grains, rocks Meteoroid? Meteor? Meteorite?
Easy to see in the sky
“Falling Star” -Meteor
How can you tell if you’ve found a meteorite?
Remember the meteor that hit Russia?
The next meteor shower (Lyrid Meteor Shower) is April 22nd!
Meteors