SMALL SOLAR SYSTEM BODIES

By Divya , Manisha , Aastha .

DWARF PLANETS The asteroid belt , which lies between Mars ,

and Jupiter ,is similar to the terrestrial planets as it is composed manly of rock and metal . Beyond Neptune's orbit lie the Kuiper belt and Oort cloud . The Kuiper belt and Oort cloud contain trans - Neptunian composed mostly of ices such as water , ammonia and methane .

Within these population , five individual objects , Ceres ,Pluto , Haumea , Makemake and Eris , are recognised to be large enough to have been rounded by their own gravity , and are thus termed Dwarf Planets .

Pluto - It’s orbit is highly elliptical and is only 18% the size of the earth

. It has a composition of rock and a high percentage of ice . It has a large moon

called Charon and 4 other moons , Nix , Hydra , and two unnamed discovered.

in 2012 .NASA’s New Horizon is expected to land on Pluto in 2015 and will be the first spacecraft to visit the world .

Ceres - also known as 1 Ceres , is the smallest dwarf planet in the solar system

and the only one in the main asteroid belt . It was discovered on January 1 , 1801

by Giuseppe Piazze . After about 200 years from it’s discovery , the International

Astronomical Union decided to upgrade Ceres from an asteroid to dwarf planetary status

in 2006 . With a radius of about 950 km , Ceres is by for the largest and most massive object in the asteroid belt .

Haumea - is a dwarf planet in the solar system . It’s discovery

was announced in 2005 . It has two known moons Hi ‘ iaka and Namaka

Makemake - is a dwarf planet . It was discovered on March 31 , 2005 . Makemake appers to be made of mainly ice and rock . It has no known moons .

Eris - is a dwarf planet . It is located in the outer Solar System . It is the largest dwarf planet known , even bigger than Pluto . It has only one moon called Dysnomia .

METEOROIDS They are smaller than comets . They are mainly chunks of rock .They may be fragments of a comet or shattered asteroids . When the Earth’s orbit crosses the path of a meteoroid , it falls through the Earth’s atmosphere .

METEORS As a meteoroid falls through the Earths atmosphere , it burns up as a result of the enormous heat generated . This makes a streak of light ,which is called a meteor or a shooting star . On a clear night , we can see many meteors in an hour .

METEORITESMost of the meteoroids fully burn up before they reach the lower atmosphere . However , sometimes , it does not fully burn and hits the Earth as a whole . This is called a Meteorites.

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OORT CLOUD The Oort cloud is a cloud of comets and other objects which astronomers believe is far beyond the orbit of Pluto and the Kuiper belt . It is believed to be the source of long – period comets in the Solar System .

The Oort cloud may lie about 50,000 AU , or nearly a light year from the Sun .This means the Oort cloud is nearly a quarter of the way to Proxima Centuary .

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The Oort cloud takes up a lot of space and has trillions of comets about tens of millions of km apart .

The objects in the Oort cloud are believed to consist of much ice .

The Oort cloud is thought to be made of a remains of a diskmade out of gaswhichsurrounded the Sun long

ago .

COMETS A comet is a ball of mostly ice that moves in outer

space . They are often described as “dirty snowball “ . They are very different from asteroids . In the solar system , the orbits of comets go further than Pluto .Most are very far away from the sun , but some come near enough to Earth for us to see at night . They have long tails as the Sun melts the ice . A comet’s tail does not trail behind it , but points directly away from the Sun , because it is being blown by the solar wind .

The hard centre of the comet is it’s nucleolus . It is one of the blackest things in the Solar System .

One of the most famous comets is the Halley’s Comet . It will reappear in 2061 . It was named after Edmund Halley , who predicted it’s reappearance .Some may appear after thousand’s of years such as Hale – Bopp Comet .

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KUIPER BELT The Kuiper Belt is an area of the Solar System

beyond the orbit of Neptune to 50 AU from the Sun . The asteroid in the Kuiper Belt are much bigger than the asteroids in the Asteroid Belt . At least some Kuiper Belt objects are icebound .

After the Kuiper Belt was discovered in 1992 ,the number of known Kuiper Belt objects has added to over a thousand ,more than 70,000 KBO’s over 100 km diameter .

Like the asteroid belt , it consists mainly of small bodies , or remnants from the Solar System formation .

Pluto is the largest known member of the Kuiper Belt , and the second largest known TNO , after the scattered – disc object Eris .

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ASTEROIDS Orbiting between Mars and Jupiter is a

cosmic junk pile of leftovers stranded after the Solar System formed from a cloud of gas and dust . These are the asteroid or minor planets . These bodies are numbered in millions but their combined mass is th that of Moon . Under the gravitation influence of Sun and Jupiter , many were flung from the Solar System or swallowed by the Sun . But presence of Jupiter prevents the rest from colliding into a planet .

Most asteroids are found in a zone around the Sun ,between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter called the Asteroid Belt . It extends from about 2.1 to 3.3 AU from the Sun .

Not all the asteroids occupy the Asteroid Belt . Some asteroids known as Trojans , actually share the orbit with Jupiter . Near – Earth asteroids are those that orbit within 1.3 AU .

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Asteroids are S- type , C – type , M – type , depending on their composition , spectrum and reflectivity .

Ceres is the largest asteroid containing rd the estimated combined mass of all the asteroids . It was also the first asteroid to be discovered . Vesta is a uniquely basaltic crusted asteroid and has the evidence of volcanic activity in it’s past . Ida , another small Asteroid has it’s own tiny moon called Dactyl .

NEAR ,short for Near – Earth asteroid Rendezvous , was the first and so-far only man-made object to go into orbit around an asteroid .

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