Video 6: Small Bodies and Cosmic Collisions
Recent missions and discoveries show that "small bodies" such as comets, asteroids, meteors, and meteorites can have great importance in understanding the origin and evolution of our solar system.
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- "Asteroids and the Birth of the Solar System" tracks humanity's ever-closer views of asteroids, which only appear as simple points of light from the surface of Earth.
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"Comets in Close Up" explores the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, the "Jupiter family" of comets, the Kuiper Belt, and the Oort Cloud. Students learn that Pluto, and Neptune's giant moon are thought by some astronomers to be large members of the Kuiper Belt, as well as what happens when a comet passes too close to the Sun.
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"Cosmic Collisions" reveals craters on Earth, the Moon, and other planets and moons as evidence of great impacts, including the one, some 65 million years ago, which may have rendered the dinosaurs extinct.
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Through the video and related activities your students will:
- Understand the characteristics of and differences between comets, asteroids, meteors, and meteorites.
- Recognize the role of collisions and impacts in destroying and enabling life.
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