Asteroids, Comets and Meteoroids

Sometimes we hear of massive extra-terrestrial bodies moving towards the Earth or just misses the Earth. One example is the November, 2011 Asteroid 2005 YU 55 whose Radius was as large as 200m i.e. up to the size of an Aircraft carrier. Other times, we see beautiful star-like bodies falling towards the Earth at nights, but soon disappears. Then again there is the incident of fast travelling mass of Dust across the Sky. What ever is the case, these beautiful products of Nature are recently well studied and categorised. Asteroids Comets and Meteoroids are composed of specific chemicals that confer their unique Characteristics. Here, we will be taking an interesting Journey through the fascinating World of these three wonder work of Nature.

Asteroids certainly do bring in a very important debate about the possibility of tapping and utilising heavenly bodies here on Earth. While the focal point is on how to actually tap the vast amount of minerals in Asteroids, the fear of destabilising the Earth's balance by the introduction of extra mass of foreign bodies, is worthy of consideration.

What is called Asteroids are thousands of mass of small rocky bodies of varying sizes moving along circular loop in the "Asteroid belt" i.e. between Mass and Jupiter. They are believed to be products of broken down planetary bodies. This is reasonable considering that Asteroids do contain similar Minerals with Earth's Minerals.

One Fascinating event that took place in 1986 was the sighting of the last Halley's Comet. Every man is expected to at most see an Halley's Comet once in a life time because the Comet is calculated to appear once in every seventy six years, thus predicting the next one to appear in the year 2062.

Unlike Asteroids that are described as solid Mass, Comets are actually made up of Gases and frozen water. A Comet is made up of mainly a Nucleus that is a collection of small bodies, and en-cycled by gaseous molecules, atoms and ions; and a bright tail. The main chemical content of the Comet are frozen water, Methane, Ammonia, and Hydrocarbons.

At least everyone one of us must have seen a Meteoroid (as meteorites) in one way or the other. Some people refer to them as falling stars even though they are commonly called shooting stars. But it is the Taboo and awe associated with them in certain cultures of Africa that is more interesting. Here, the appearance of a shooting Star at night is believed to depict the death of an Individual. But those cultures usually do not know that Meteoroids also fall in the day that Darkness is responsible for the visibility at night.

Meteoroids are small particles of stones that are the products of Comets and Asteroids moving through space at a very high speed. While they are regarded as Meteoroids, those that are able to penetrate the Earth's Atmosphere are called Meteors.

The process by which Meteoroids enters into the Earth is one of the Emblems of the Earth's self defence mechanism. Here, travelling meteoroids are faced with ram pressure (a somewhat opposing frictional force) of the Earth to disintegrate, thus forming bright flash of light conceived as a Star. But very large Meteoroids had made it into the Earth crust to form large Craters. Samples taken from them showed that Meteoroids contain Hydrogen, Magnesium, Iron, Sodium, Nickel, Calcium, Aluminium and Silicon.