Neo Earth

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Meteors


To begin with, meteors are found all over the solar system. They are any body (typically rocky) that is too small to be a comet or an asteroid. There are three types of asteroids, stone, iron and stony-iron. Any meteor that manages to catch on fire as it passes through the atmosphere and makes it through is called a fire ball. Technically, for something to be called a fire ball, it has to be generating its own light and that light must be brighter than Venus. Fireball over utah

Types and a little bit about them
    • Meteoroid is any amount of matter revolving around the sun or any object in space that is too small to be classified as an asteroid of comet.
    • could have originally been comets that broke into pieces
    • meteoroids ,meteors and meteoroids are all made of rock, ice and other metals such as nickel and iron
    • meteors are meteoroids that burned up in the Earth’s atmosphere
    • a meteorite is a meteoroid that reaches the earth’s surface without being completely vaporized
    • a meteoroid is any piece of matter too small to be a comet or asteroid that is revolving around the sun or any body

Normal meteor in space


How are they formed?

    • Meteors, meteoroids and meteorites all formed the same way
    • Could be parts of planets, comets or asteroids that had previously broken up
    • Thought by scientists to be around 4,500,000,000 years old

fireball after it has entered the atmosphere


Types

o stony iron, rarest meteors, only 2% or all meteors are stony-iron

o stone, most meteors are stone, formed the outer crust of a planet or asteroid/comet

o iron, 90%-95% iron, besides iron mostly nickel, formed the iron core of a planet or asteroid/comet, most craters on earth were caused by iron meteors, about 5% of meteors that fall to earth are iron meteors,

Meteor craters

o Meteor craters are caused when a meteor hits earth (duh)

o 2 types of craters simple and complex

o Collision with earth causes further fracturing of the meteor

o Atmosphere protects Earth from meteors by burning them to a size where they cannot do much damage besides initial impact

o Complex crater caused when Earth rebounds against the force of the meteor

Facts

o About 9 meteor showers per year

o Even a piece of dust that enters the atmosphere can be considered a meteor

o Most meteors are found in the south pole because they stand out against the natural landscape, many are also found in the desert for the same reason

-Meteors can act as a "boost" for radio signals sending them further

-Meteors can be knocked off their course by a nuclear weapon, this is called an X-ray slap

-You are more likely to win the lottery than be hit by a meteor, people are hit by meteors about every 189 years

Meteor showers

o More meteors than normal (normal being 1 per hour)

o Named after the closest consolation

o A common cause is when a comet breaks up and all of its pieces enter the atmosphere

Fireballs

o A meteor that is large enough to cast a shadow on earth

o Must also be generating its own light (on fire, hence the name fireball)

o Must be at least as bright as Venus

o Smaller fireballs travel fast enough to create a sonic boom

o Generally fireballs travel faster than normal meteors

Example

o Name: The Willamette Meteorite

o Found in: The Willamette valley, Oregon, 1906

o weight: 15.5 tones

o Type: iron meteor

o Mass: 3 meters * 1.9 meters * 1.9 meters

Example 2

o K-T Extinction is believed to have caused the Extinction of the dinosaurs and 80% of all species

o Only 13% of flora and fauna survived

o Meteor hit what is now the gulf of Mexico and created it

o In 2002 another crater was found in Boltysh, Ukraine from around the same time as the K-T meteor and it is now believed that the mass extinction was caused by multiple meteors

Example 3

o Allende meteorite

o One of the largest recorded fireballs

o Exploded about 547 KM south of El Paso Texas

o Caused no crater

o Caused a meteor shower

o Contains some of the oldest matter in our solar system

o When it exploded over Mexico it caused a meteor shower of all of its fragments and did not all hit earth in one spot

12 comments:

  1. Hi Vance!
    This is a HUGE improvement from your former posts! You have pictures(captioned!), exciting-enough voice, bullets, and more. You are still missing "scribe post" as one of your labels, though, and you have used no bold words in the text which doesn't make anything stand out. Your captions are also not "marked" in any special way - you are simply just putting them in the middle of the text. You have some small spelling/grammar mistakes, for example you wrote utah instead of Utah, but other than that, the science looks great and the rest looks fine too! Great job! :)

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  2. Vance - you have definitely covered everything you went over in class. I liked your use of colors to explain the different parts, but using bold for the section titles would have been helpful. Nice improvement on spelling and grammar (I can see you used spell check); there were only a few errors. The one area you have not included were any links - Moodle, your notes, elsewhere. These are required for your post. You have included some pictures, but I think one of them is a comet, not a meteor. Finally your labels are missing "Scribe Post" and your title is missing a date. I do think your Science looks good, but you need to be sure to meet all of the requirements on the rubric. ~Ms. D.

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  3. Hey Vance-
    Great post! You did a great job in explaining all the topics you covered during class, and your explanations were very clear. Maybe your captions could have been closer to the picture(underneath or to the side) and maybe you shouldn't had used so many colors because it looked a little too much like a rainbow and they distracted me a bit. I agree with Ms. D and Viktor that your Science looks good, but you could have put in a few links to maybe a few videos about meteors or to Moodle or your notes, and you forgot to put in 'Scribe Post', and you maybe could have gone into further detail of what simple and complex craters are, because I got confused there. All in all, your post was great, and there were only minor mistakes! :D

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  4. Hey Vance
    This is a great looking post and I beet you had some improvements in you post. I love the idea that you used bullet points because it helped you to be organized. I love the pictures that you used on your blog. They look fantastic. But you shouldn't use really bright colors because while I was reading the part which was in bright blue it was hearting my eyes. Next time put links which can help people understand and learn about the subject that you are talking about, or at least link it to moodel. After all that was a great post :)

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  5. Hey Vance,

    I really like your post!!! You used very nice colors and the font was readable. I think you improved in your post. The information was very clear. I also think you could of added a few links. Maybe one to moodle and maybe some videos about your topic. The pictures you used are very nice and clear (not blurry).
    In all your post was great :D

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  6. Vance,
    this is a very good post and definitely better than the previous one, but there is a little mistake at the beginning: you are missing a date in the title. I like how you use different font colors to emphasize the various paragraphs in your body-text about the meteors; so, the huge amount of the data looks eye-catching. You could only use another type and size of the font for the subtitles. The definition about the meteors is a little bit confusing and you could make it clearer what it is exactly, not what it isn't (comet or asteroid). Other than that, this was good and simple explanation about the topic. It would be nice to see meteors in action or shower of meteors in some links or videos according to your choice. I like the photos especially the one which shows the meteor in space. You are making progress with every next post.
    Dave ;-D

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  7. Hey Vance- This post was definitely a great improvement from posts earlier in the year! All of your spelling and grammar look good except for a few capitalization mistakes. It was good how you chose many different colors, it made the post vibrant but watch out because occasionally it was hard to read. The pictures were related to your post and captioned, although the captions could've been more detailed. The post was very informative and scientific, although you didn't use vocabulary words or links for more information. A video or a current article about meteors would have been a good choice for a link. Your post is lacking a class date, so you should add that as soon as you can. Finally, you need to add a "scribe post" label to your labels. So overall, this was your best post so far, but I agree with Dave, you are making lots of progress in scribing. Nice job, Vance!
    Ben :D

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  8. Hey Vance!!! Well, this post was definitely a really good post. It has three pictures (which I think is enough), you have many MANY colors, but I think that you made some mistakes also... For example, you don't have any links or videos about your topic. Also, it would be great if next time you choose another font and some of the colors (like the light blue and pink). And you don't have any info paragraph, nor the date... But otherwise, it is a great post! I really liked that you gave examples and definitions of the words, that were a bit unfamiliar to me. Good work!~~

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  9. Hello Vance,

    First of all I want to say that your post is looking really good. You have different colors for the paragraphs pictures with captions and you also wrote the post in bullets which makes it easy to read. However you have made several mistakes. Number one, you forgot to include "scribe post" as one of your labels, but it isn't such a big problem. Another problem is that you have some minor grammar/ spelling mistakes, but most of the post is great. You could have also added some links to Moodle, maybe a google doc of your notes or something like that. Regarding the science I believe it is really good that you gave examples of meteors and I just want to say that the Willamette Meteor is gargantuan! 15.5 tons!!!! Anyways, congratulations on a really thorough post.

    All the best,

    Cip

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  10. Hi there Vance,
    Great post! You have a lot of information, good font, and a great amount of color. Your science also looks great! You have a couple of spelling errors, and also some grammar mistakes. For the first half of your post, I was very interested and wanted to read more. The captions under the pictures helped a lot in the understanding of them. Though, later, during the second half of your post, I got a bit bored, since you had no pictures. One or two of them could really have made your post better. You have great labels. Though, you have no links!! At least one or two "fun links" could have helped the reader in understanding what you wrote! Also, a link too Moodle is always necessary, and you forgot to put that too. I also didn't understand the following phrase: "When it exploded over Mexico it caused a meteor shower of all of its fragments and did not all hit earth in one spot," since it was a bit chaotic and it didn't make a lot of sense to me. You should have explained with further detail what it was about for anyone who, like me, didn't attend your class. Overall, though, your post has helped me learn a whole lot more on Meteors. Especially the part in which you talk about the different types of Meteors and what they contain (iron, stone, etc.) really helped my understanding in Meteors grow. Great improvement, great final post, and keep up the good work!

    Davide

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  11. Hey Vance,
    That was a really good post, you wrote well and it was very interesting, also, there were many pictures with correct captions. I liked your real life example, and the fact that you changed colors every time you were speaking of something else. The light blue was a bit hard to read, but still okay. I noticed only few grammar and spelling mistakes, but nothing major, except for the labels, that (although done) were missing "Scribe Post", and that the title was only "Meteors" and should have been more specific, and possibly including the date of the class, either in the title or in the text. Next time I recommend that you recheck the directions though, because you forgot to add the links! You were supposed to add a link to moodle, and a link to something else, so that someone else could have an easier time understanding what you meant. Except for that, your science is really good, with a lot of information about the Meteorites, and with a lot of different facts, that although important, were also very easy to understand.
    Overall Good Job!

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  12. Hey Vance,
    Nice post, I liked the colors and pictures you put in and that you put the notes you took in class. I liked that you put live examples and that you had good science vocabulary. Your title though was a bit plane and did not have any meaning, I'm sure that you did not only talk about meteors in class or that Ms. D did not mention any homework. I think that you could have explained in more detail about what you did in class. I also liked the "fun facts" you put but I think that you could have put a link or two, even just a link to moodle. This post was good in length and had good information as i said before. Over all good post.

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