Protecting Earth from Asteroids
Students investigate asteroid impacts as a natural hazard, from daily meteors and the Chelyabinsk airburst to Meteor Crater and the dinosaur-ending impact, then learn how astronomers find near-Earth asteroids and how NASA's DART mission proved an asteroid's path can be changed.
Grades 5-8About 15 minutes of narrated flight, plus discussion stops6 stops
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What students will see and do
Students fly from Earth to the cratered Moon, back to impact scars on Earth, out past Mars to the asteroid belt, across the whole inner solar system and finally to the DART impact. Aetherion pauses for discussion at the Moon (why Earth's craters disappear), Mars (how crowded the asteroid belt really is) and the solar system view (finding versus deflecting).
Learning objectives
- Distinguish among meteoroids, meteors, meteorites and asteroids.
- Explain why the Moon preserves craters while Earth erases most of them.
- Describe how survey telescopes detect near-Earth asteroids by their motion against the stars.
- Use DART's measured result (an orbit shortened by about 32 minutes) to explain how a kinetic impactor deflects an asteroid, and why warning time matters.
NGSS connections
| MS-ESS3-2 | Students analyze data on past impacts and asteroid surveys to forecast a rare natural hazard and discuss technologies that reduce its risk. |
|---|---|
| MS-ETS1-1 | Students define the criteria and constraints of a deflection mission, including warning time and asteroid composition. |
| MS-ETS1-3 | Students compare deflection methods (kinetic impactor, gravity tractor, evacuation) using DART's test data. |
| MS-ESS2-2 | Students connect erosion, plant growth and plate motion to the disappearance of impact craters on Earth. |
Stops on this journey
- Space Rocks Every Day
- A Face Full of Craters (discussion stop)
- Scars on Your Planet
- Beyond Mars, the Belt (discussion stop)
- Searching the Sky (discussion stop)
- DART Hits Its Target
Vocabulary
- asteroid
- meteoroid
- meteor
- meteorite
- crater
- airburst
- near-Earth asteroid
- kinetic impactor