Zooms along the galaxy…
- Asteroids are gathered rock and metal that orbits around the sun.
- Asteroids can range from 10 meters (33 miles) to 1000 kilometres in length.
- Asteroids that have the length 100 meters (328 feet) have a rotation of over 2.2 hours.
- Newly discovered asteroids are named by the year, the semi-month and the sequence of the semi-month it was discovered.
- The first asteroid to be discovered was ‘Cerus’ in 1801.
Ida
Photo courtesy of NASA – NSSDC (Broken Link)
- Asteroids are formed by gravity pulling rocks and metal towards it and are mostly an irregular shape.
- The asteroid ‘951 Gaspin’ was the first asteroid to have a close up picture of it taken.
- Asteroids were originally thought to be stars, until space exploration was issued.
- In, 1993 the asteroid Ida, 31 kilometres (19 miles) in width, was the first asteroid discovered to have its own moon, about two kilometres (one mile wide), and was named Dactyl.
- All the known asteroids put together aren’t heavy enough to way the same as earth’s moon.
Bibliography:
Asteroid 7 January 2013, Wikipedia, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid>
