Chelsea Esposito's Quiz

April 5, 2013

Quiz

1. Why is there an asteroid belt?
The asteroid belt formed from the primal solar nebula as a group of planetesimals, the smaller precursors of
the planets, which in turn formed protoplanets.

2. How are meteorites related to asteroids?
Meteorites are small pieces of asteroids.

3. How do comets get their tails?
The surface boils off as it approaches the sun.

4. Where do comets come from?
Comets are leftovers from the accretion process. There are icy comets outside frost line.
They come from the Oort Cloud and the Kuiper Belt.

5. How big can a comet be?
It comes in a range of sizes. They can be up for 3.5 miles long.

6. What are Pluto and other large objects of the Kuiper belt like?
The Kuiper belt contains at least three dwarf planets and many varieties of sizes of asteroids, but mostly
small.

7. Have we ever witnessed a major impact?
Comet SL9 caused a string of violent impacts on Jupiter in 1994, reminding us that catastrophic collisions
still happen. Tidal forces tore it apart during a previous encounter with Jupiter.

8. Did an impact kill the dinosaurs?
A meteorite 10 km in size would send large amounts of debris into the atmosphere. Debris would reduce
the amount of sunlight reaching Earth’s surface. The resulting climate change may have caused mass
extinction.

9. Is the impact threat a real danger or just media hype?
It could be both. We get less of a warning with a deadly comet impact than smaller comets approaching
Earth. So, I mean, regardless of it’s media hype or not, we won’t really know until it’s kind of too late.

10. How do other planets affect impact rates and life on Earth?
The gravity of a Jovian planet (especially Jupiter) can redirect a comet. Jupiter has directed some comets
toward Earth but has ejected many more into the Oort cloud.