Tag Archives: asteroid

Protecting Our Home

Posted on April 8, 2024 by John Newell

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

Posted on April 7, 2024 by Charles Knoll

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…

Posted on April 5, 2024 by Abbie!!

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

Posted on March 6, 2024 by Robert Navarro

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

Posted on March 5, 2024 by Robert Navarro

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?

Posted on April 16, 2022 by Brian

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

Posted on April 16, 2022 by joubertklopper

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

Posted on April 8, 2022 by jesszhang782

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

Posted on April 7, 2022 by camsto42

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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Florida Asteroid Burning Up

Posted on April 15, 2021 by mwdobson3

On Monday April 13th, a small asteroid was spotted in the night sky off the east coast of Florida. One of my family members was all the way across the state on the western side of Florida and saw the asteroid’s fireball-like appearance as it passed by Earth over 26,000 km away. According to theContinue reading “Florida Asteroid Burning Up” Continue reading →

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