Hello, Middle School Friends! Our Solar System is made up of many celestial bodies. Apart from the sun, planets and satellites, there are also various small objects that also fill space in the solar system. So, what are these little things? Let’s see this article!
Asteroids are formed from objects left over from the formation of the solar system. When gas and dust merge with the sun, some of the material will combine and become terrestrial rocks and become gas planets that also surround the sun. Dust that is even smaller and unable to become a planet will become an asteroid. This asteroid can come from the Asteroid Belt or Kuiper Belt.
Other celestial bodies are meteoroids which originate from asteroid fragments. Sometimes when doing orbits, one asteroid and another can collide with each other and cause some of its parts to break up. These fragments are what we then know as meteoroids. Meteoroid events that are affected by Earth’s gravity are called meteors which then enter the Earth’s atmosphere, usually called shooting stars, the rest of meteorites that reach the earth are called meteorites.
Maybe junior high friends have heard the term “tailed star”. Comets are another name for comets. Comets are members of our solar system which have very oval trajectories. These objects have high orbital eccentricities, generally having perihelion of the inner planets and farther aphelion than Pluto.
Comet comes from the Greek Comet which means hair. Comets are composed of compounds of ammonia, methane, water and silicates which are usually known as volatile ice. The comet section consists of a head which is a solid part and a comet tail which is a gas that always stays away from the Sun and changes in size. When a comet enters the inner Solar System, its proximity to the Sun causes its icy surface to sublimate and ionize, which produces a long tail of gas and dust, which is often visible to the naked eye.
The Oort cloud, which is far away on the outer edge of the Solar System, is best known as a comet reservoir. Cold objects in the Oort cloud when they cross near their Earth orbit will appear as very beautiful comets in the sky with their comet tails.
Being at a great distance, the influence of the Sun’s gravitational force on objects in the Oort cloud is also getting weaker. In this condition, the influence of other passing stars or other disturbances will easily change the orbits of these comets.
As a result, if there is a disturbance, objects in the Oort cloud will be disrupted and enter the interior of the Solar System and we will see them as comets or even ejected from the Solar System into interstellar space. This is especially the case for comets at the outer edges of the Oort cloud. It is in the outermost part of the Oort cloud that long period comets are located.
Those are some small objects in our solar system. Maybe some of them we can see like comets or meteors that fall to Earth. How, are you interested in learning things about outer space? Write your opinion in the comments column, OK, Middle School Friends. I hope this information is helpful!
Author: SMP Directorate Web Manager
Reference: Class VII Natural Sciences Open Middle School Learning Module published by the Middle School Directorate in 2020
