Dwarf Planets
•Dwarf Planet - an object that orbits a star and has enough mass and gravity to pull itself into a spherical shape.
•Has objects similar in mass orbiting nearby or crossing its orbital path
•Ceres is the smallest, Eris is the largest
•Pluto is so far from the Sun it takes 248 years to complete one orbit.
•Has objects similar in mass orbiting nearby or crossing its orbital path
•Ceres is the smallest, Eris is the largest
•Pluto is so far from the Sun it takes 248 years to complete one orbit.
Asteroids
•Most orbit the Sun in the belt between Mars and Jupiter
•Chunks of rock and ice that never clumped together to form a planet
•Jupiter’s gravitational field may have caused chunks to collide so violently they broke apart
•Chunks of rock and ice that never clumped together to form a planet
•Jupiter’s gravitational field may have caused chunks to collide so violently they broke apart
Comets
•Mixture of rock, ice, and dust particles loosely held together by the gravitational attractions among the particles
•Orbit the Sun in stretched out elliptical orbits
•Solid, inner part is its nucleus
•Closer to the Sun – heats up and develops bright tail
•Orbit the Sun in stretched out elliptical orbits
•Solid, inner part is its nucleus
•Closer to the Sun – heats up and develops bright tail
Meteoroids
•Meteoroid – small rocky particle that moves through space
•Meteor – streak of light in Earth’s atmosphere made by a glowing meteoroid
•Meteorite – a meteoroid that strikes a planet or a moon
•Impact Crater – round depression formed on the surface of a planet, moon, or other space object by the impact of a meteorite
•Meteor – streak of light in Earth’s atmosphere made by a glowing meteoroid
•Meteorite – a meteoroid that strikes a planet or a moon
•Impact Crater – round depression formed on the surface of a planet, moon, or other space object by the impact of a meteorite
