ERTH 2415 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Space Debris, Meteoroid, Gas Giant
26 Sep 2015
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Document Summary
Takeaways: know where space objects impacting the earth come from and what they are, describe the consequences of impacts with space objects of different sizes, sources of extraterrestrial debris, meteoroid - extraterrestrial debris orbiting the sun. Outside of mars, before jupiter, there is the main asteroid belt. Sun are the gas giant planets (icy bodies of h, he and other frozen materials). Very far away from the sun are comets (stable water ice material dispersed too thinly for planet formation: main asteroid belt. Jupiter"s gravity creates zone of perturbations (disturbed gravity field). Planetesimals could not stick together and grow to full-size planets. Most asteroids are in the main asteroid belt between mars and jupiter. Collisions between asteroids in the belt send a few fragments to impact the earth: near-earth asteroids: asteroids crossing the orbits of earth or mars. Comet ice can sublimate (solid gas) near the sun, forming an atmosphere and, sometimes, a tail of dust and/or gas.
