Earth Sciences 1086F/G Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Asteroid Belt, Kirkwood Gap, Solar System
14 Dec 2016
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Document Summary
Asteroids are primordial objects left over from the formation of the solar system. Only recently do astronomers know much about asteroids. Most are small chunks of rock b/w mars and jupiters" orbits that occasionally interfered w long- exposure photographs. Meteorites tell us that asteroids were the last remains of the planetesimals: hence gives us a way to explore the ancient past of our planets, also gives us a way to better search for other star-planet systems. Asteroids in main asteroid belt have fairly circular orbits and there are many more undiscovered: main asteroid belt is actually mostly empty, there are variations in orbits due to its response to jupiter nearby, collisions can occur. Or can glue two asteroids together (if low speeds: current asteroid belt bears little resemblance to the original one. It"s likely that all of the larger ones are found: there are many asteroids not in the main belt; some are dangerous: potentially hazardous.
