Asteroids, Comets and Meteors
Students learn how asteroids, comets and meteoroids formed as leftovers of the early solar system, where they live, how comets grow tails, and how impacts have shaped Earth and can be prevented.
Grades 5-8About 15 minutes of narrated flight, plus discussion stops8 stops
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What students will see and do
Students fly from a solar system overview to the asteroid belt beyond Mars, past Jupiter, out to the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud, in toward the Sun with a comet, and home to Earth for meteors, meteorites and impacts. The class pauses at three discussion stops: the asteroid belt, Jupiter's influence, and comet tails near the Sun.
Learning objectives
- Distinguish asteroids, comets, meteoroids, meteors and meteorites by composition and location.
- Explain how gravity, especially Jupiter's, shapes the asteroid belt and its gaps.
- Describe how solar heating, sunlight pressure and the solar wind produce a comet's coma and two tails.
- Evaluate evidence from Meteor Crater, Chicxulub, Tunguska, Chelyabinsk and DART about impact hazards and planetary defense.
NGSS connections
| MS-ESS1-2 | Students model how gravity holds small bodies in orbits, shapes the asteroid belt's Kirkwood gaps, and gathers Trojan asteroids along Jupiter's orbit. |
|---|---|
| MS-ESS3-2 | Students analyze data on past impacts and the DART test to discuss forecasting and reducing the hazard of asteroid strikes. |
Stops on this journey
- Leftovers of Creation
- The Asteroid Belt (discussion stop)
- Jupiter, the Shepherd (discussion stop)
- Where Comets Sleep
- A Comet Comes Alive (discussion stop)
- Shooting Stars
- Stones from the Sky
- When Big Rocks Hit
Vocabulary
- asteroid
- comet
- meteoroid
- meteor
- meteorite
- coma
- Kuiper Belt
- Oort Cloud