Tag Archives: asteroid

The Asteroid Belt

Asteroids are a really interesting part of the solar system, but is strangely absent from most models of the solar system. So what exactly is the Asteroid Belt? Diagram of The Asteroid Belt The Asteroid Belt is a ring of asteroids between Mars and Jupiter and is made up of millions of them. They vary […] Continue reading

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Protecting Our Home

History is doomed to repeat itself. Will we be ready? Around 66 million years ago, an object estimated to be around 10km wide struck Earth at incredibly high speeds. The energy released was equivalent to roughly 100 million megatons of TNT. The impact, then, released over 6.5 billion times more energy than the catastrophically powerful […] Continue reading

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Blog 6: Asteroid Size

Asteroids, with their varied shapes and sizes, are fascinating objects of the solar system. Their shapes are largely dictated by gravitational forces, with larger asteroids having enough gravity to form into roundish objects. These space rocks are riddled with craters due to many collisions over time. Among them, Ceres stands out as the largest, with a diameter just under […] Continue reading

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Some things never change…

Asteroids are rocky leftover pieces from the planetary formation era that never ended up becoming planets. They orbit our Sun out in the asteroid belt, but they are too small and weirdly shaped (thanks to impacts!) to be classified as planets. To give a sense of the size range of asteroids, the largest asteroid, Ceres, […] Continue reading

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Blog #4

Composition -The solar system is primarily composed of the Sun, which makes up about 99.8% of its total mass. The Sun is primarily composed of 74% hydrogen and about 24% helium with some amounts of heavier elements. Planets in our solar system are divided into two main groups based on their composition: the terrestrial planets […] Continue reading

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Blog Post #3

The solar system began to form from a giant molecular cloud of gas and dust particles about 4.6 billion years ago. This cloud most likely experienced a shock wave from a nearby supernova, which could have made it collapse under its own gravity. It then began to spin and flatten into a disk shape due […] Continue reading

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Chicxulub Impactor Found?

In class, we discussed the Chicxulub impact, which is highly likely to have triggered the extinction event that killed the dinosaurs. Despite the large size of the impactor, the catastrophic impact and 65 million years of geological processes have hidden the exact nature of the impactor from scientists. While iridium deposits in sedimentary rock layersContinue reading “Chicxulub Impactor Found?” Continue reading

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Asteroid, meteor, meteoroid, meteorite

These four terms are often misunderstood and the objects/occurrences they represent are thought of to be similar when in reality that is not the case. I am here to put these false assumptions about these misunderstood terms to rest. Looking at the definitions. An asteroid is a rock in space orbiting the sun, a meteoroid […] Continue reading

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Asteroid Mining

Rocky asteroids contain metals that are commonly used on Earth. What if there was a way to mine those metals from asteroids and bring them back to Earth? The potential gains seem promising, as even a small asteroid can contain enough industrial metals … Continue reading

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Blog 6: Asteroids

On this Tuesday, April 5th, an asteroid the size of a house flew by the Earth. This asteroid flew by 79,000 miles away from us, which is actually pretty close. That distance is around 1/3 the distance between us and the Moon. Although there is always some panic that an asteroid could hit Earth, this […] Continue reading

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