Earth Sciences 1086F/G Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Near-Earth Object, Daniel Kirkwood, S-Type Asteroid
4 Apr 2016
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Document Summary
Until recently, asteroids were more of an irritant than fascination! Meteorites now show us that asteroids are planetesimals that built the planets 4. 57 billion. They have been photographed as small, complex worlds with irregular shapes and deeply cratered surfaces! Study of asteroids gives us a way of exploring the past of our solar system! Also heads us in a better direction for the discovery of new star-systems! Today, thousands of asteroids in the main belt between mars and jupiter have accurately known orbits! Despite modern imagery, the main asteroid belt is very empty! Although there are a large number, they occupy such a large volume of space that it is unlikely you could see one from the surface of another! However, due to the large number and orbital variations, collisions do occur! A collision may occur in different ways:: could break the asteroids into smaller pieces, it may glue together two asteroids!
