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Objective – Using data tables, I can describe the characteristics of comets, asteroids, and meteors.
Asteroids, Comets, and Meteors Trading Cards
Task
Create a set of trading cards for asteroids, comets, and meteors.
Materials
 3x5 cards
 Asteroid/Comet/Meteor Fact Sheet
Each card has two sides.
The front shows a picture of the person. It has the name, position, etc.
The back gives you information about the person. It has statistics, personal
information, fact, etc.
~1~
Objective – Using data tables, I can describe the characteristics of comets, asteroids, and meteors.
Procedure
1. On the front of the card, make a card and draw a picture got for the following…
 Meteoroid, Meteor, Meteorite.
 Asteroid
 Comet
In addition to the picture, include the object’s name.
2. On the back of the card, organize and provide the following information (Note: A
table is a good way to organize the information).
 Meteoroid, Meteor, Meteorite
o A description of the object.
o Make three cards for meteors.
 Meteoroid – definition.
 Meteor – definition.
 Meteorite – definition.
Meteoroid
Meteor
Meteorite
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Objective – Using data tables, I can describe the characteristics of comets, asteroids, and meteors.
 Asteroids
o Draw a picture of an asteroid on the front.
o Write general facts about asteroids on the back.
o Make an individual card for the following asteroids.
 433 Eros
 1862 Apollo
 Trojans
 Comets
 Make two general cards.
o The first card…
 Draw a picture of a comet and, on the back, include basic a
description of the parts of a comet.
o The second card…
 Draw a picture of a comet.
 Label the three parts of a comet on the front.
 Leave the back blank
 Make a card for each of the following comets…
o Comet Hale-Bopp
o Comet Halley
o Comet Hyakutake
o Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9
~3~
Objective – Using data tables, I can describe the characteristics of comets, asteroids, and meteors.
Asteroid Fact Sheet
 If all of the asteroids were combined into a ball, they would still be much smaller
than the Earth’s moon.
 Asteroids orbit our Sun, a star, in a region of space between the orbits of Mars
and Jupiter known as the Asteroid Belt.
 One day on asteroid Ida, for example, takes only 4.6 hours (the time it takes for
this asteroid to rotate or spin once). Ida makes a complete orbit around the Sun
(a year in this asteroid’s time) in 4.8 Earth years.
 Asteroids are solid, rocky and irregular bodies.
 Asteroids do not have atmospheres.
 More than 150 asteroids are known to have a small moons. Some have two
moons.
 One asteroid has been found that has rings.
 Asteroids cannot support life.
 It is estimated there are millions of asteroids.
Trojan Asteroids
 Found in Jupiter’s orbit.
 There are two groups.
o One orbits ahead of Jupiter.
o One orbits behind Jupiter.
 Several hundred have been found.
 First discovered in 1906.
 Asteroids are named after heroes
from the Trojan War.
 It is estimated about one million
are ½ mile or larger.
Trojan Asteroids
~4~
Objective – Using data tables, I can describe the characteristics of comets, asteroids, and meteors.
Facts About Individual Asteroids
944 Hidalgo
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Hidalgo has the longest “year” of any asteroid in the Asteroid Belt, 13.77 years.
Its orbit ranges from 251,100,000 miles out to 887,220,000 miles (Saturn’s orbit).
Some astronomers suspect that it was once a comet.
Its diameter is estimated to be 24 miles.
1862 Apollo
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It was first discovered in 1932, but was lost.
It was found again in 1973.
It is named after the Greek god, Apollo.
It is the first asteroid found to cross Earth’s orbit.
It is also crosses Venus’s and Mars’s orbits.
~5~
Objective – Using data tables, I can describe the characteristics of comets, asteroids, and meteors.
433 Eros
 Named for the Greek god of love.
 It is a near-Earth asteroid. It often comes close to Earth (but not close enough to
his us!).
 It is about 4.5 billion years old.
 The NEAR-Shoemaker space probe studied Eros from January 10, 1998 –
February 12, 2001.
 Eros was the first asteroid on which a space probe (NEAR-Shoemaker) landed.
 Its average distance from the Sun is 134,900,000 miles.
 Its diameter is 20 miles x 8 miles x 8 miles.
 It takes 1.8 Earth years to revolve around the Sun.
~6~
Objective – Using data tables, I can describe the characteristics of comets, asteroids, and meteors.
Comets Fact Sheet
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 A comet has three parts – a nucleus (the actual
comet), a coma (gases surrounding the nucleus),
and dust tail.
 The dust tail always points away from the Sun.
 Short-period comets (comets that orbit the Sun in
less than 200 years) are found in the Kuiper Belt It
begins beyond the orbit of Neptune, from about
2,790,000,000 miles to 5,115,000,000 miles.
 When Comet Halley is at its farthest distance
from the Sun, it is 3.3 billion miles away.
Long-period comets (comets with orbits longer than 200 years) are found in the
Oort Cloud. Its range is from 465,000,000,000 miles to 9,300,000,000,000 miles
(9.3 trillion miles).
Comets are sometimes called “dirty snowballs” or “icy dirtballs” because they are
made of frozen gases, rock and dust.
A comet warms up as it nears the Sun and develops an “atmosphere,” or coma.
The coma may be hundreds of thousands of miles in diameter.
Comets do not have moons.
Comets do not have rings.
Comets probably formed in the outer Solar System.
Diameters range from about 6–25 miles.
They contain a lot of ice, along with rocks and dirt.
The surface is unstable and changes as ice vaporizes off comet as it approaches
the Sun.
May have contributed large part of Earth’s water.
Orbits the Sun.
Irregular shapes.
Not massive enough to be round like a planet.
May spin because of irregular shape.
Have crashed into Earth.
~7~
Objective – Using data tables, I can describe the characteristics of comets, asteroids, and meteors.
Facts About Individual Comets
Comet Hale-Bopp – It was discovered on July 23, 1995, by
Alan Hale and Thomas Bopp. Careful analysis of Hubble
Space Telescope images suggested that its brightness was due
to its exceptionally large size. Most comets are about 1 to 2
miles across. Hale-Bopp’s was estimated to be 25 miles
across. It was easily seen wherever you lived. It may have
been the most viewed comet in recorded history. It holds the
record for the longest period of visibility: 19 months. It will
not appear again for another 2,400 years.
Comet Halley - Comet Halley is the most famous
comet in history. It was named after British astronomer
Edmund Halley. He proposed the comets seen in 1531
and 1607 were the same objects that followed a 76-year
orbit. Halley died in 1742, never living to see his
prediction come true. The comet returned on Christmas
Eve in 1758. Rock, ice, and dirt blown off the comet
forms an orbiting trail of material. When Earth travels
through the debris, we see the Orionid meteor shower. Comet Halley will return to the
inner Solar System in the year 2061.
Comet Hyakutake - On January 30, 1996, Yuji
Hyakutake (pronounced “hyah-koo-tah-kay”)from
Japan discovered a new comet using a pair of
binoculars. It made a close flyby of Earth —
displaying one of the longest tails ever observed. This
is not Comet Hyakutake’s first visit to the inner Solar
System. Astronomers have determined its orbit and
believe it was here about 8,000 years ago. Its orbit will
not bring it near the Sun again for about 14,000 years.
~8~
Objective – Using data tables, I can describe the characteristics of comets, asteroids, and meteors.
Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 - Between July 16 and
July 22, 1994, more than 20 fragments of Comet
Shoemaker-Levy 9 collided with the planet Jupiter.
Astronomers Carolyn and Eugene Shoemaker and
David Levy discovered the comet in 1993. The
Hubble Space Telescope took many pictures of this
event as the comet’s pieces crashed into Jupiter. It was
the first collision of two Solar System bodies ever to
be recorded. The impacts created atmospheric plumes many thousands of miles high
that showed hot “bubbles” of gas with large dark “scars” covering the planet’s sky.
~9~
Objective – Using data tables, I can describe the characteristics of comets, asteroids, and meteors.
Meteors Fact Sheet
 Meteorites may vary in size from tiny grains to large boulders.
 One of the largest meteorite found on Earth is the Hoba meteorite from
southwest Africa, which weighs roughly 54,000 kg (119,000 pounds).
 Meteor showers are usually named after a star or constellation which is close to
the radiant (the position from which the meteor appears to come).
 Meteors and meteorites begin as meteoroids, which are little chunks of rock and
debris in space.
 When a meteor produces enough light to cast a shadow on the earth it is called a
fireball.
 A meteor is a tiny particle from outer space that produces light as it enters the
earth’s atmosphere.
 Meteors, in size, range from a grain of sand to a baseball.
 The largest meteors are sometimes broken bits of asteroids.
 Meteor streams are the particles left by comets in their orbit around the Sun.
 Meteor showers are created by cosmic debris that enter the earth’s atmosphere at
very high speeds.
 Records of meteors and meteor showers date back many years. Native
Americans took records of the meteor and meteor showers that they saw in their
lifetime.
 On any night, any location, a few meteors can be seen each hour.
 Most meteorites are either iron, stony or stony-iron.
 Meteorites may look very much like Earth rocks, or they may have a burned
appearance. Some may have depressioned (thumbprint-like), roughened or
smooth exteriors.
 Many of the meteor showers are associated with comets. The Leonids are
associated with comet Tempel-Tuttle; Aquarids and Orionids with comet Halley,
and the Taurids with comet Encke.
 When comets come around the Sun, they leave a dusty trail. Every year the Earth
passes through the comet trails, which allows the debris to enter our atmosphere
where it burns up and creates fiery and colorful streaks (meteors) in the sky.
 Leonid MAC (an airborne mission that took flight during the years 1998 - 2002)
studied the interaction of meteoroids with the Earth’s atmosphere.
~10~
Objective – Using data tables, I can describe the characteristics of comets, asteroids, and meteors.
 Meteoroids, meteors and meteorites cannot support life. However, they may
have provided the Earth with a source of amino acids: the building blocks of life.
 Meteoroids become meteors -- or shooting stars -- when they interact with a
planet’s atmosphere and cause a streak of light in the sky. Debris that makes it to
the surface of a planet from meteoroids are called meteorites.
 Meteors, known also as shooting stars, are usually sized from a grain of sand to
about a softball. As the meteor enters the Earth’s atmosphere it becomes very
hot due to friction like when you rub your hands together for a few moments.
They become bright and seem to streak across the sky.
 When the Earth enters a meteoroid stream left by a comet it produces a meteor
shower. These showers can be predicted and come every year or so. They are
named after the constellation that the meteors appear to be coming from. See
table below.
Common Meteor Showers
Name
Date Seen
Lyrids
April and June
Perseids
August
Orionids
October
Taurids
November
Leonids
November
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