Geminids meteor shower Flashcards
What is it?
believed to be the strongest meteor shower of the year, is active from December 4-December 20
What are meteor showers?
Meteors are bits of rock and ice that are ejected from comets as they manoeuvre around their orbits around the sun.
Meteor showers are witnessed when Earth passes through the trail of debris left behind by a comet or an asteroid.
Why is the Geminid meteor shower considered to be the best of the year?
because their origin does not lie in a comet, but what is believed to be an asteroid or an extinct comet.
asteroid is over 5 km in diameter and was named after the Greek myth of Phaethon
What Are The Differences Between An Asteroid, Comet, Meteoroid, Meteor and Meteorite?
Asteroid: A relatively small, inactive, rocky body orbiting the Sun.
Comet: A relatively small, at times active, object whose ices can vaporize in sunlight forming an atmosphere (coma) of dust and gas and, sometimes, a tail of dust and/or gas.
Meteoroid: A small particle from a comet or asteroid orbiting the Sun.
Meteor: The light phenomena which results when a meteoroid enters the Earth’s atmosphere and vaporizes; a shooting star.
Meteorite: A meteoroid that survives its passage through the Earth’s atmosphere and lands upon the Earth’s surface.
Image
https://www.insightsonindia.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/space_rock.jpg
What is coma?
The coma is the nebulous envelope around the nucleus of a comet, formed when the comet passes close to the Sun on its highly elliptical orbit; as the comet warms, parts of it sublimate. This gives a comet a “fuzzy” appearance when viewed in telescopes and distinguishes it from stars.
