EARTHSC 2GG3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Solar Wind, Achondrite, Basalt
30 Mar 2016
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Document Summary
Asteroids: chunks of rocks, didn"t join into planets when solar system formed. Asteroid belt: between mars and jupiter one planet is missing. Asteroids pulled out of normal orbits by asteroid collisions or gravitaional inluence sun/planets. Comet: solid nucleus of a rock and ice mixture, surrounded by a coma of dust and gas. Tail a mixture of water, other volailes, dust that solar wind sprays away from the direcion of the sun. Kuiper comet belt plane of solar system, trillions of comets. Comets spray of water, dust and volailes to form glowing tails when hit by solar winds. Eventually lose all water, become rocky, diicult to disinguish from asteroids. Comets have the highest chance of coming close to earth. Meteors: objects that form a streak of light in the sky (shooing star) as they pass through earth"s atmosphere most come from the asteroid belt. Small meteors burn up in the upper atmosphere.
