Other+Bodies+in+Space

This is an asteroid in space.

Asteroids: They are tiny rocky planets that orbit the Sun. The smallest they can get is 1km. The largest is 700km. Asteroids can be found in the asteroid belt which is between Mars and Jupiter. Asteroids whose orbit crosses the Earth's orbit is called Apollo asteroids. Asteroids may even be named after people, Asteroids that are closet to the Sun are made of carbon. Asteroids that are furthest are made of silicate rock. There are 9,576 Minor planet names recognized by the International Astronomical Union as of June 26, 2002. Here are some of the names (3192) A'Hearn, (3654) AAS, (8721) AMOS, (9996) ANS, (3498) Belton, (15620) Beltrami, (2368) Beltrovata, (15000) CCD, and (2252) CERGA.

Meteors: Millions of meteors occur in the Earth's atmospere every day. Most meteoroids that cause meoteors are about the size of a pebble. They become visible between 40-75 miles above earth. A meteor is a bright streak of light that appears breifly in the sky. People often call meteors shooting stars or falling stars because they look like stars falling from the sky. Peolpe sometimes call the brightest meteors fireballs. A meteor appears when a particle or chunk of metallic or stony matter called a meteoroid enters the earth's atmospere form outer space. Air friction heats the meteoroid so that it glows and creates a shining trail of gases and melted meteoroid particles. The gases include vaporized meteoroid material and atmospheric gases that heat up when the meteoroid passes through the atmospere. Most meteors glow for about a second. Most meteoroids disapear before reaching the earth. But some leave a trail that lasts several minutes. Meteoroids that reach the earth are called meteorites. Comets:A comet is an icy body that releases gas or dust. Most of the comets that can be seen from Earth when they travel around the sun in long, oval orbits. A comet is made up of of a solid core surrounded by a cloudy atmosphere called the coma. Most comets are too small to be seen without a telescope. Comets lose ice and dust each time they return to the inner solar system leaving behind trails of debris. When Earth passes through one of these trails, the debris become meteors that burn up in the atmosphere. Eventually, some comets lose all their ice and turn into a meteor. A famous comet is Hailey's comet.Hailey's Comet becomes visible about every 76 years.

HAILEY'S COMET