Lecture 5: Rocks in space

Further reading

• If you'd like to plot the orbits of solar system bodies, including comets and asteroids, try "Solar System Live" by John Walker, http://www.fourmilab.to/solar/solar.html
• You can use "Solar System Live" to plot comets and asteroids as well. Orbital elements of comets can be found at the IAU: Minor Planet Center "Minor Planet & Comet Ephemeris Service" page http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/MPEph/MPEph.html . For instance, you can find the orbital elements for comet Halley by entering 1P/Halley. Select "MPC 8-line" as the "Format for elements output", and cut and paste the orbital elements directly into the Solar System Live site to see where the comet is now. Thus it's easy to see that, although it's only 23 years after its last perihelion, and there are 52 years until the next one, Halley is already at Neptune's orbit, nearly at aphelion: this is an excellent illustration of Kepler's second law. To get side on views, change the Heliocentric latitude to 0 degrees and the longitude to 90 degrees.
• Alan Taylor has put together a beautiful image of "All (known) Bodies in the Solar System Larger than 200 Miles in Diameter" (now including a new metric version with everything larger than 320 km in diameter) at http://www.kokogiak.com/gedankengang/2007/03/all-known-bodies-in-solar-system.html. Because this was made in 2007, some of the dwarf planets, like Haumea and Makemake, still have their provisional designations.
• Mike Brown's list of dwarf planets http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown/dps.html
• There's a list of binary asteroids at "Asteroids with Satellites" by Wm. Robert Johnston, http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/astro/asteroidmoons.html
• The Earth Impact Database http://www.unb.ca/passc/ImpactDatabase/ lists every confirmed impact crater known
• The home page of the Dawn mission to Vesta and Ceres is at http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/
• If you need to report a meteor fireball, there's an on-line report form at the International Meteor Organisation's page, http://www.imo.net/fireball
• The Impact Calculator at http://simulator.down2earth.eu/index.html allows you to simulate smashing an asteroid into Earth and see how big a crater your asteroid made. You even get to choose which city you crash into (though unfortunately (!) Sydney is not on the list)
• NASA has an information site on Earth impact hazards at "Asteroid and Comet Impact Hazards", http://impact.arc.nasa.gov/; see also the "Near Earth Object Program: Current Risks" http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/
• There is a list of all minor planets and asteroids predicted to approach within 0.2 AU of the Earth during the next 33 years at the IAU Minor Planet Center, "Forthcoming Close Approaches To The Earth", http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/lists/CloseApp.html
• The BBC has a news story about 2008 TC3, the asteroid that hit Sudan, at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7964891.stm
• There's an article on "The saga of Asteroid 2004 MN4" at http://impact.arc.nasa.gov/news_detail.cfm?ID=154.
• The Association of Space Explorers (ASE), the international organization of astronauts and cosmonauts, is leading the effort to develop a UN treaty and other international mechanisms about asteroid deflection. Their report is available on-line at http://www.space-explorers.org/ATACGR.pdf; it contains a good discussion of the issues involved.

Source for images

• Background image: Eros, taken by NEAR-Shoemaker, from Astronomy Picture of the Day 2001 February 11 http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010211.html
• Asteroid cover picture: Galileo image of asteroid 951 Gaspra, from APOD 2002 October 27 http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap021027.html
• Asteroid orbits: from "Explorations: An Introduction to Astronomy!" by Thomas T. Arny, Fig. 10.4 http://www.mhhe.com/physsci/astronomy/arny/instructor/graphics/ch10/1004.html
• NEAR trajectory: from NEAR Mission Profile at the NASA Planetary Missions site http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/mission/near/near_traj.html
• Eros animations: from NEAR Eros Animations http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/mission/near/near_eros_anim.html
• Kirkwood gaps: from "Explorations: An Introduction to Astronomy!" by Thomas T. Arny, Fig. 10.7 http://www.mhhe.com/physsci/astronomy/arny/instructor/graphics/ch10/1007.html
• Differentiation: from "Explorations: An Introduction to Astronomy!" by Thomas T. Arny, Fig. 10.6 http://www.mhhe.com/physsci/astronomy/arny/instructor/graphics/ch10/1006.html
• Asteroid shapes: Mathilde, Gaspra, and Ida, from Astronomy Picture of the Day March 13, 1998 http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980313.html
• Mathilde flyby: NEAR images: animation and video http://near.jhuapl.edu/Images/.Anim.html
• Animation and model of Vesta: from the Hubble News Center Archive http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/1997/27/
• NASA's journey above Vesta: from the Dawn animations page, http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/videos.asp
• Binary asteroid: Astronomy Picture of the Day 2004 June 19 http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040619.html
• Tidal disruption simulation: from Walsh & Richardson 2006, "Binary near-Earth asteroid formation: Rubble pile model of tidal disruptions", Icarus 180, 201
• Itokawa: from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/25143_Itokawa
• Patroclus and Menoetius: Frank Marchis "Study of Patroclus and Menoetius: A Double Trojan System" http://astro.berkeley.edu/~fmarchis/Science/Asteroids/Patroclus/
• Asbolus: Hubble Site release STScI-2000-31 http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/solar-system/kuiper-belt-object/2000/31/
• Comet cover image: Comet West from Astronomy Picture of the Day 26 August 1995 http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap950826.html
• Orbit of comet LINEAR: from Chandra X-ray Observatory Photo Album http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/cycle1/c1999s4/more.html
• Orbit of Comet Halley: from "Comet Halley" http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/comets/halley.html
• Coma: Hale-Bopp, from Astronomy Picture of the Day February 12, 1997 http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap970212.html
• Comet's tail: Hale-Bopp, from Astronomy Picture of the Day 27 December 2000 http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap001227.html
• Two tails: from http://www.physics.fsu.edu/courses/spring99/ast1002h/solarsystem/fig16-14/fig16-142.htm. Hale-Bopp in 1997: Jerry Lodriguss, from Astronomy Picture of the Day 2007 March 31 http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070331.html
• Comet McNaught: picture by Robert McNaught, from Astronomy Picture of the Day 2007 January 22 http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070122.html; comet over Bendalong, photo by Alain Picard
• McNaught's tail: Astronomy Picture of the Day 2007 February 1 http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070201.html
• Comet nuclei: from A'Hearn et al.: "EPOXI at Comet Hartley 2", Science 332, 1396, supporting online material
• Deep Impact image: from Deep Impact gallery http://deepimpact.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/index.cfm
• SOHO comet: from SOHO gallery http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/gallery/images/xmascomet.html
• Oort cloud/Kuiper Belt title image: artist's conception of the Kuiper Belt object Quaoar, from Hubble Site News Center Archive, http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/2002/17/
• Kuiper belt: from Views of the Solar System by Calvin Hamilton http://www.solarviews.com/cap/index/oortcloud1.html
• Oort cloud/Kuiper belt: from "Explorations: An Introduction to Astronomy!" by Thomas T. Arny, Fig. 7.4 http://www.mhhe.com/physsci/astronomy/arny/instructor/graphics/ch07/0704.html
• Trans-Neptunian objects: Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Neptunian_Objects
• Orbits of TNOs: Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scattered_disk
• A list of known trans-Neptunian objects can be found at http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/astro/tnos.html
• Meteor title image: Leonids over Uluru, from Astronomy Picture of the Day 30 October 2002 http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap021030.html
• Fireball: Leonid fireball, from Astronomy Picture of the Day 2 December 1999 http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap991202.html
• The Great Daylight Fireball: from APOD 2009 Mar 2 http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap090302.html
• Meteoroid endpoints: re-drawn from "Meteorites: A journey through space and time" by Bevan and de Laeter, p. 31
• Crater formation: from The Terrestrial Planets by Gareth Wynn-Williams http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/~wynnwill/110/images/crater_formation.gif
• Meteorite images: from "Exploring Meteorite Mysteries" http://www-curator.jsc.nasa.gov/outreach1/expmetmys/slideset/Slides35-42.htm
• Dust grain: from "Stardust: Catching particles in Space", http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/science/sd-particle.html
• Isochron: from "The Talk.Origins Archive: The Age of the Earth" by Chris Stassen http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html
• Images of 2008 TC3, from Nature vol 458, pp 401 and 485
• Meteorite crater on Mars: from Discovery News, "Mars scarred by meteorite impact", http://news.discovery.com/space/mars-hirise-impact-crater.html
• Impact frequency: from "Collisions with near Earth objects" http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/astronomy/q0296.shtml
• Impacts and life: Table 1 from "How common are habitable planets" by Jack Lissauer, 1999, Nature 402, C11, available at http://www.kepler.arc.nasa.gov/papers.html
• Animation of K-T impact: from The Wright Center for Science Education, Tufts University, "It's Judgement Day" http://www.tufts.edu/as/wright_center/impact/impacta.html
• Illustrations of K-T impact: from "The Impact that Wiped Out the Dinosaur" by William Hartmann http://www.psi.edu/projects/ktimpact/ktimpact.html
• Comet Shoemaker-Levy: Hubble images, from HubbleSite News Archive, http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/archive/releases/1994/26/ and http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/archive/releases/1994/32/
• Crater chains: Ganymede: from Astronomy Picture of the Day, 2001 December 15, http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap011215.html. Moon: from Lunar Photo of the Day, January 27 2004, http://www.lpod.org/archive/2004/01/LPOD-2004-01-27.htm
• Torino Impact Scale: from "Asteroid and Comet Impact Hazards", http://impact.arc.nasa.gov/torino.cfm
• 99942 Apophis orbit predictions: from "Collisions with near Earth objects" http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/astronomy/q0296.shtml

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Last updated 9 October 2011