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Cosmic Projectiles
By Linda | February 24, 2008
Last week, Astronauts took a space walk outside the International Space Station. Among other maintenance tasks, they were there to investigate damage to an external handrail of the ISS that may have been caused by a micrometeoroid.
Many people get confused between the various types of space debris. This week’s “Science Word of the Week” actually includes several definitions that should clear things up.
On July 4th, 1995 NASA’s Deep Impact spacecraft rendevoused with comet Tempel 1, collecting valuable data about the composition of comets
An asteroid is one of numerous, often irregularly shaped rocky bodies that orbit the Sun primarily in the asteroid belt, a region between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Asteroids are intermediate in size between planets and meteoroids
A comet is a relatively small extraterrestrial body with a nucleus of rock, ice, dust and gases. A comet travels around the sun in a highly elliptical orbit. As a comet nears a star, it begins to heat up and vaporize. The gas and dust flies off the comet, sometimes violently enough to break the nucleus apart. These cast-off materials form a cloud around the nucleus called the coma.
A meteoroid is matter revolving around the sun or any object in interplanetary space that is too small to be called an asteroid or a comet.
Micrometeoroids or cosmic dust grains are very tiny fragments which include any interstellar material that should happen to enter our solar system
A meteorite is a meteoroid that reaches the surface of the Earth without being completely vaporized while traveling through our atmosphere. Meteorites are classified into three broad categories; stony, stony iron, and iron.
Topics: Science Factoids, Technology, The Cosmos |
