2. Comets
chunks of frozen gases,
rock & dust that orbit the
sun
tail is formed when the
comet comes close to the
Sun
Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 hit Jupiter in 1994.
4. Meteors & Meteorites
A meteoroid is a clump of rock or metal which is
pulled towards Earth by gravity
In Earth’s atmosphere it heats up, begins to glow
and becomes a meteor
If the object is not vaporized before it contacts the
Earth’s surface it is called a meteorite
meteoroid meteor meteor shower
5. Asteroid: -Small; inactive
- made of rock, carbon or metal
- Orbits the sun
Comet: - small; sometimes active object
- made of dirt, gas and ice
Meteoroid: - small particle from an asteroid or comet
- orbits the sun
Meteor: - A meteoroid that burns up in the Earth's
atmosphere - a shooting star.
Meteorite: - A meteoroid that survives its passage
through the Earth's atmosphere and impacts
the Earth's surface.
What’s the difference?
6. Moons/Satellites
Large natural objects which revolve
around a planet
many planets have more than one
moon
Earth’s moon has no atmosphere and
has hills/valleys/craters
after the invention of the telescope
Galileo saw 4 moons of Jupiter
Moons can come in a variety of size
and with a variety of surfaces
7. Stars
A STAR is a luminous ball of plasma that is held
together by gravity.
What is the nearest star to Earth?
What is the nearest star to the Sun?
9. Stars
Polaris
pole star for the Northern Hemisphere
390 light years from Earth
part of a binary star system
Sirius
the brightest star in the sky (70 times more
luminous than the sun)
8.6 light years from the Earth
Betelgeuse
one of the brightest stars in the sky
supergiant
1,000 times bigger than the Sun but cooler than
the Sun
10. Outside our Solar System
Voyager I, Pioneer 10 & 11
andVoyager 2 built to
explore outside our solar
system
Took 20 years to leave solar
system
will reach the nearest star in
50 000 years
Editor's Notes
Comet Tails – the white tail is sunlight reflecting off the particles that have been released; the blue tail is made of gases (ion or gas tail)