Chapter 3: Near-Earth Objects

1. Chevy Asteroid
2. Characteristics of
Near-Earth Objects
3. Impact Features
4. Impact Hazards
5. Beware of Flying
Rocks

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 Chevy Asteroid
1992: A football-sized meteorite crashed through the trunk of
Michelle Knapp’s Chevrolet Malibu Classic in Peekskill,
New York

Near-Earth objects
(NEOs) are
asteroids or comets
that approach Earth
What are the
chances that a
larger space object
will crash into Earth
in the near future?

The Good Earth, Chapter 3: Near-Earth Objects

 Chevy Asteroid

Earth carries the

scars of past impacts
with asteroids and
comets
A devastating
collision with a 10-km
wide asteroid is
hypothesized to have
caused a global
Barringer (Meteor) Crater, Arizona formed extinction event 65
approximately 50,000 years ago when a 50-meter
diameter meteorite crashed to Earth.
million years ago

The Good Earth, Chapter 3: Near-Earth Objects

 Characteristics of Near-Earth Objects

Most NEOs do not come close to Earth

but occasionally one may approach
within the moon’s orbit

In 2029, the asteroid Apophis is

expected to come within 36,000
km of Earth . . . about here.

The Good Earth, Chapter 3: Near-Earth Objects

Characteristics of Near-Earth Objects

Few asteroids were Today, more than 90,000

recognized in the inner solar asteroids have been identified.
system 100 years ago. (Red squares = NEOs)

The Good Earth, Chapter 3: Near-Earth Objects

Characteristics of Near-Earth Objects
Asteroids
• Size – space pebbles to
940 km in diameter
(Ceres)
• Travel at ~16 km/s
(36,000 mph)
• Composed of rock
and/or metals
− Meteor – asteroids that
burn in atmosphere
− Meteorite – an asteroid
Asteroid 433 Eros that strikes Earth’s
surface
The Good Earth, Chapter 3: Near-Earth Objects
Near-Earth Objects Conceptest

What characteristics are true for

both planets and asteroids
A. They are approximately spherical in shape.
B. There are thousands of examples.
C. They formed 1 to 2 billion years ago.
D. They are present in the solar system.

The Good Earth, Chapter 3: Near-Earth Objects

 Near-Earth Objects Concept Survey
1. Radius greater than 500 km
Venn Diagram: Planets vs. Asteroids 2. Essentially spherical in shape
Place the numbered items in the 3. Orbit the Sun
appropriate fields in the Venn Diagram. 4. Have a gravitational field
5. Can rotate
Planets Asteroids 6. May be made of materials
similar to Earth
7. Possess moons
8. Thousands of examples
4 10 9. Most have atmospheres
10. Have less predictable orbits
11. Have a variety of shapes
7 12. Formed after the Big Bang 4
billion years ago.
13. Have craters
14. Some will collide with Earth
15. Example: Pluto
16. Example: Eros

The Good Earth, Chapter 3: Near-Earth Objects

Characteristics of Near-Earth Objects

Comets Comet “tail” forms as heat

from sun causes ice to change
• Size – generally larger from solid to a gas. The “tail”
points away from the sun
than asteroids
− Many are 100s km across
• Travel faster than
asteroids
− ~50 km/s (112,000 mph)
• Composed of dust and
ice with a rocky core
− “Icy dirtballs”

The Good Earth, Chapter 3: Near-Earth Objects

Characteristics of Near-Earth Objects
Comets
• Analysis of light from
explosion on Tempel 1
revealed information on
comet composition
• Common compounds
present including
− Cyanide
− Carbon dioxide
− Water – scientists are
investigating if comets
could have supplied water
Collision of “impactor” spacecraft with
in Earth’s early oceans
comet Temple 1, July 4, 2005
The Good Earth, Chapter 3: Near-Earth Objects
Characteristics of Near-Earth Objects
Comets
• 1908 explosion of a comet in the atmosphere over
Tunguska, Russia, destroyed forest over an area the
size of a major city (2,100 km2)

Trees knocked down by a comet exploding in the atmosphere over Tunguska

The Good Earth, Chapter 3: Near-Earth Objects
Characteristics of Near-Earth Objects
Two types of comets
• Short-period comets
− Originate in Kuiper Belt
beyond Neptune
− Return to inner solar
system every few years
• Long-period comets
− Originate in the Oort
Kuiper Belt Cloud at the outer limits of
Oort Cloud the heliosphere
− Return to inner solar
system over decades to
thousands of years

The Good Earth, Chapter 3: Near-Earth Objects

 Characteristics of Near-Earth Objects

• Long-period comets
− Travel toward the sun with
irregular orbits that may be at
a high angle to planets

• Short-period comets
− Orbit sun with similar
paths to outer planets

The Good Earth, Chapter 3: Near-Earth Objects

Near-Earth Objects Conceptest

Where is the Kuiper Belt relative

to the asteroid belt?
A. The Kuiper Belt is closer to the sun than the
Asteroid Belt.
B. The Kuiper Belt is farther from the sun than
the Asteroid Belt.
C. The Kuiper Belt and Asteroid Belt are located
in the same region of the solar system.

The Good Earth, Chapter 3: Near-Earth Objects

 Near-Earth Objects Concept Survey
Venn Diagram: Planets vs. Comets
Complete the Venn diagram by adding 1. Diameter greater than 1,000 km
more characteristics to the partial list and
place the numbers in the corresponding 2. Orbit the sun
locations on the diagram. 3.
4.
Planets Comets
5.
6.

2 7.
8.
9.
1
10.
11.
12.

The Good Earth, Chapter 3: Near-Earth Objects

 Impact Features
• NEO collisions with rocky
planets and moons form 2
types of impact craters
− Simple craters
− Complex craters

1,200 meters

Barringer (Meteor) Crater, Arizona, a simple

crater formed 50,000 years ago. This was the
first meteorite crater recognized on Earth.

The Good Earth, Chapter 3: Near-Earth Objects

 Impact Features
• Craters all feature
− Broken rocks (breccia)
− Ejecta thrown from crater
− Melt rocks
− Altered minerals

• Simple Craters
− Bowl-shaped
− Few kilometers wide

• Complex Craters
− More than 4 km diameter
− Central peak, ring
structures

The Good Earth, Chapter 3: Near-Earth Objects

 Impact Features

Simple crater
• Unnamed
crater on Mars

Bowl-shaped
2,600 meters

Ejecta blanket
surrounding
the crater

The Good Earth, Chapter 3: Near-Earth Objects

 Impact Features

Complex crater
Ejecta blanket
surrounding crater • Eratosthenes crater
on the moon
• 58 km diameter
Central peak

Ring-structures
around edge of crater

Small simple craters

The Good Earth, Chapter 3: Near-Earth Objects

 Impact Features

• Crater vs. NEO size

− An impact crater is 10-20
times larger than the
colliding NEO
− Example: Manicouagan
Crater, Canada
 ~100 km wide crater
 NEO was 5-10 km in
diameter

Remains of the 200 million year-old

Manicouagan Crater, Canada.

The Good Earth, Chapter 3: Near-Earth Objects

 Impact Features

• Craters on Earth
− More than 150 impact
craters identified on
continents
− Few impact sites
identified in oceans
 Why?

Sites of the 10 largest impact craters on Earth.

The Good Earth, Chapter 3: Near-Earth Objects

Near-Earth Objects Conceptest

Meteor crater (1,200 meters wide) was

formed by an NEO about the size of a

A. Car
B. Two-story house
C. 15-floor office building
D. City block

The Good Earth, Chapter 3: Near-Earth Objects

Near-Earth Objects Conceptest

Which diagram best illustrates the land

profile across a complex crater?

The Good Earth, Chapter 3: Near-Earth Objects

 Impact Hazards

• The impact of an NEO with

a diameter equivalent to
− Lincoln Memorial (~50
meters) would destroy a large
city
− National Mall (~1 km) collides
with Earth every 100,000
years and would devastate
most nations
− Washington, D.C., (~10 km)
collides with Earth every 100
Key buildings of Washington, D.C. million years and would
produce global-scale
destruction

The Good Earth, Chapter 3: Near-Earth Objects

Impact Hazards

• Large NEO impacts

are infrequent
− Impacts of relatively
small NEOs (~50
meters) occur at
intervals of hundreds
to thousands of years
− Large NEO (10+ km)
impacts occur on time
scales measured in
hundreds of millions
of years

The Good Earth, Chapter 3: Near-Earth Objects

 Impact Hazards
What would happen if a 10 km NEO collided with Earth?

The Good Earth, Chapter 3: Near-Earth Objects

 Impact Hazards
What would happen if a 10 km NEO collided with Earth?
1. Fireball racing through atmosphere
2. People at impact site, seconds to live
3. Air blast would flatten everything for hundreds of
kilometers in all directions
4. Massive earthquake at collision
5. Ocean impact would produce giant tsunami hundreds of
meters high
6. Molten rock from collision would rain down, start massive
wildfires
7. Huge cloud of dust blocks sunlight, cools planet for
months, kills off most vegetation
8. Gases from impact – sulfur dioxide, water vapor – added
to atmosphere The Good Earth, Chapter 3: Near-Earth Objects
 Near-Earth Objects Conceptest

Imagine that two identical asteroids crashed

into the same type of rocks on the surface of
the moon and Earth. Both produce impact
craters. How do the impact craters
compare?
A. The crater on the moon will be larger
B. The crater on Earth will be larger
C. The craters will have the same dimensions

The Good Earth, Chapter 3: Near-Earth Objects

Near-Earth Objects Concept Survey

Two 1-km-wide asteroids collide with Earth. The first

asteroid strikes a desert area 1,000 km from the city
of Bang, with a population of 1 million people. The
other lands in the open ocean 1,000 km from an
identical city named Crash that also has 1 million
people. Both cities are located along low-lying
coasts similar to the Atlantic coast of the eastern US.

Predict which city will experience the most damage.

Explain your choice.

The Good Earth, Chapter 3: Near-Earth Objects

 Beware Flying Rocks

• NEO impacts are the only major natural

hazards that we have the potential to prevent
− Can’t stop volcanic eruptions
− Can’t stop earthquakes
− Can’t stop hurricanes

• With fore-warning, NEOs could potentially be

deflected off-course or destroyed
• Scientists have already hit a comet with a
spacecraft and landed a spacecraft on an asteroid

The Good Earth, Chapter 3: Near-Earth Objects

 Beware Flying Rocks

NEO Detection
• Current NEO search programs focus on the
approximately 1,000 objects with diameter of
more than 1 km
− Search programs are looking for fast-moving dark
objects against the backdrop of space
− Largest NEOs pose the greatest risk and are
easiest to find
− Scientists map position of specific NEOs over time
to chart their course relative to Earth

The Good Earth, Chapter 3: Near-Earth Objects

Beware Flying Rocks
• The Torino Scale
− 0 = NEO will miss Earth or
burn up in atmosphere.
− 1 (green) = will pass near
Earth but extremely unlikely
to impact.
− 2-4 (yellow) = NEO with
minor chance of impact.
− 5-7 (orange) = serious threat
of impact, planning may be
warranted.
− 8-10 (red) = certain collision,
number corresponds to size
of NEO.
The Good Earth, Chapter 3: Near-Earth Objects
 Use information from this chapter to
identify interactions between NEOs and
the earth system.

The Good Earth, Chapter 3: Near-Earth Objects