ERTH 2415 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Abrupt Climate Change, Acid Rain, Sonic Boom
19 Jun 2015
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Asteroid are small rock bodies smaller then planets: main asteroid belt lies between terrestrial planets (earth, venus, mars, mercury) and giant planets such as jupiter and saturn. The main asteroid belt is not continuous itself, it has several gaps in between. Therefore, there is a huge planet gap between mars and jupiter: the asteroid size range is from tinny pebbles to ceres (small size planet, diameter. One group of near earth asteroids are called apollo asteroids. According to the orbital map shown in the lecture, we notice that there are 2 intersections between the orbit of the earth and the orbit of apollo"s. Similarly, we have another class known as the atons. The orbit of atons also intersect the earth"s orbit twice: secondary source: comets these are small objects of ice and debris moving through outer space. They are very far far from sun, very cold temperature, also called dirty snow balls.
