РефератыИностранный языкAsAsteroids Essay Research Paper Inour solar system

Asteroids Essay Research Paper Inour solar system

Asteroids Essay, Research Paper


In


our solar system today there are over 30 000 asteroids flying around in all


directions colliding with other asteroids and planets not caring about the


destruction they might convey. Our planet Earth is caught right in the middle of


all of this action and is liable to entire extinction of any life forms on the


planet if a large enough asteroid crosses its path. Any one single asteroid has


the possibility to erase thousands of years of history and wipeout the human


race as we know it. Asteroids are large or small chunks of rock and metal flying


around space up to speeds of 80 000 km/h. These chunks were believed to have


formed millions of years ago during the "big bang". These rocks


didn?t form any planets and were stuck floating around space on their own or


in the gravitation of the asteroid belt. This belt is approximately 300 million


miles from the Sun and it contains thousands of asteroids some being miles in


diameter. Another theory of the formation of asteroids is that a planet between


Mars and Jupiter once existed and after many years it exploded into thousands of


pieces that are still revolving around the sun in the form of an asteroid belt.


Other asteroids are formed when large meteors collide with large asteroids


creating more small ones. These meteors can also collide with planets breaking


off chunks of the crust into space. Ceres is believed to be the biggest asteroid


that was in space at one point in time. Ceres was believed to be 600 miles wide


making up 1/3 of the total mass of all asteroids. Ceres was the first asteroid


discovered and was found in 1801. There are two main types of asteroids; the


first dominates the outer part of the belt and are found to be rich in carbon,


the second group are located in the inside of the belt and are found to be rich


in minerals. The average temperature of the surface of an asteroid is


approximately -73 degrees C. Many people don?t know that every year over 50


000 small asteroids called meteors hit the Earth every year. These meteors are


the outside layer of larger asteroids that have been chipped off or are the


surface of other planets that have detached from their positions when hit with


larger asteroids. Asteroids sometimes align with Earth when meteors flying


through space collide with other asteroids in the belt causing pieces to break


off and head in all directions. Sometimes these pieces just happen to get


aligned with Earth. However, scientists are trying to discover a way in which


they can detonate a nuclear bomb close to the asteroid causing it to change


rotation and therefore change its course. This is very dangerous because if the


asteroid explodes it will make even more of a mess when hundreds of pieces are


then on course with the Earth. Asteroids are found all over space but are most


abundant in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. This belt holds about


2000 asteroids all of different shapes and sizes. This belt has its own


gravitational pull and all of the asteroids in it revolve around the Sun. It is


believed that this belt was formed when planet X exploded. Although the majority


of asteroids are found in this belt and are generally stuck in its gravitational


pull, they are sometimes jarred from their positions from the impact of other


asteroids that are constantly floating through space. Although asteroids could


destroy Earth if they come in contact with it, small meteors that hit

Earth are


found to be great discoveries. These small space rocks that have been chipped


off of other planets such as Saturn or Mars are a great way of studying other


planets surfaces without having to travel millions of miles for samples. They


come to us. If it wasn?t for asteroids hitting the Earth, we might not be here


today. Millions of years ago when the Earth was forming it was a giant ball made


of liquid molten. Over a long period of time asteroids hit the Earth at


tremendous velocities causing them to join the molten and create a crust for


life. After many years of this, the Earth was formed from hundreds of asteroids


combined into one large planet. Asteroids are found to be one of the most


fascinating and dangerous things in space. This is because it is difficult to


spot every asteroid close to our planet and at any time an asteroid may be


spotted very close to Earth with too short a notice to stop it. Asteroid


tracking should be very important to the world and more time and money should be


put into it. These objects could mean the end of mankind all together. Today we


find over 150 craters on our planet some being a few kilometers in diameter. If


asteroids this big hit our planet today many living things would be destroyed


within thousands of miles of the impact point. This shows us evidence that many


asteroids have collided with this planet in the past that could have ended


civilization. Today there is known to be about 163 asteroids that are flying


through our solar system that are found hazardous to Earth. In 1997 a mile wide


asteroid passed within the distance of the Earth and the Moon when it came 40


000 km from hitting us. This seems to be a lot of room to spare but it isn?t


when you take into account the vast amount of space in our solar system.


Scientists believe that an asteroid is going to be the closest to Earth on


October 26, 2028. Because of the danger asteroids pose NASA funded a program


called space watch to try and track asteroids close to Earth. All together NASA


spends about $3.5 million US tracking asteroids. This gets very difficult


because it takes 10 to 30 years of notice to track an asteroid on its way


towards Earth. Asteroids are classified as hazardous if they?re bigger than 1


km wide and found within 8 million kilometers of Earth. It is very probable that


a large asteroid will hit the Earth in the future because of the planet?s past


experience with asteroid collisions. Scientists estimate that an asteroid more


than 800 m in diameter hits the Earth every million years and a smaller one hits


every century. An asteroid bigger than 1 km would mean the end of about 30% of


the World?s population. This size of an asteroid would be the equivalent


explosion to 2 million Hiroshima bombs. This explosion would wipeout population


by the destruction of all living creatures within a hundred mile radius as well


as blocking off the Sun with dust and rock particles for weeks or even months.


Asteroids are probably the deadliest force that our solar system can produce,


one strike could put man back in the dark ages and would kill almost the entire


population of our planet. It is for this reason that scientists should focus


more on understanding asteroids and research more into the defense of our


planet. At the moment we only know where a fraction of the asteroids out there


are. The asteroid that could destroy our planet could only be a year away and we


don?t even know it exists.

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