
Set the pace for learning comets, asteroids and meteorites with a half-hour to 45-minute plan, including a warm-up exploring imagined origins and the differences and effects on Earth.
Explore how comets, asteroids, and meteorites differ in composition, origin, and orbits; learn about tails, impacts, and iconic missions like Rosetta that studied a comet up close.
Explore the diverse worlds of comets, asteroids, and meteorites, from the Bennu mission and asteroid belts to mining prospects, meteor events, meteor showers, and potentially hazardous objects.
Downloadable assessment questions are available in the resource center, featuring two pages totaling 25 questions with the answers shown after, and you can pause the video to avoid seeing them.
Engage in cross-curricular activities that connect the course material with genealogy, social studies, math, and engineering. Explore how comets influence history and culture and simulate impact scenarios.
Review how the curriculum meets most state standards for science and technology, with New Jersey examples, credit NASA images, and acknowledge inspiration from a briefer history of time.
Explore what astronomy studies beyond Earth: celestial objects, light-based observations, and cosmic distances. Learn about stars, planets, galaxies, and the universe through telescopes and spectroscopy.
Explore how solar eclipses occur when the moon blocks the sun's light, detailing partial, annular, and total eclipses, the roles of umbra and penumbra, and safe viewing.
Watch meteors any night and during showers as Earth passes through comet debris, especially the Perseids. Lie down in a dark sky for an hour and observe with naked eyes.
Discover how solar particles interact with Earth's magnetic field to create the aurora borealis, where to view them near magnetic poles, and practical observing and photography tips.
Artemis aims to return humans to the moon and establish a permanent presence, preparing for Mars. It uses the SLS, Orion, and a lunar gateway, with phased international collaboration.
Comets are among the most beautiful astronomical objects in our sky, but brought fear to our ancestors when they appeared. Find out what comets are and where they come from in this lesson. What’s the difference between a comet an asteroid and a meteorite? Could one of these objects really hit the Earth? You will know after streaking through the solar system with this lesson.
This Course includes the following great BONUS LESSONS:
What on Earth is Astronomy?
Mini-Lesson: Eclipses
Mini-Lesson: Meteor Showers
Mini-Lesson: Aurora
Project Artemis: America Returns to the Moon
Comets, Asteroids and Meteorites
1. Objective
2. Warm-up activity
3. General overview of large object impacts in the Solar System
4. Why some objects are impacted more than others
5. Atmosphere
6. Erosion
7. Impacts on Earth and the Moon
8. Differences and similarities between asteroids, comets and meteorites
Comets
9. What our ancestors thought of comets and where they came from
10. Where comets originate: the Oort Cloud
11. Predicting comet appearances in the sky
12. Edmund Halley and Halley’s comet
13. The meticulous tracking of comets by the Chinese
14. Sublimation
15. Comet composition and structure: dust tail, ion tail and nucleus
16. The Kuiper Belt
17. Trans-Neptunian objects
18. Jupiter-family comets
19. Comet naming conventions and discoveries
20. The International Astronomical Union
21. Comet Shoemaker and its crash into Jupiter
22. Evidence of comet impacts throughout the Solar System
23. Comets and the Sun
24. Comet speeds
25. Missions to comets
26. The Rosetta mission and the Philae comet lander
27. Periodic comets: long-term and short-term
Asteroids
28. Asteroid composition
29. Asteroid missions
30. The Asteroid Belt
31. The asteroid moons of Mars and Jupiter
32. Dwarf planets in the Asteroid Belt
33. Mining asteroids for metals and minerals
34. Asteroids with moons, tails and rings
35. Tracking potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs) and near-Earth objects (NEOs)
Meteors
36. Differences and similarities between meteors and meteorites
37. Meteors and the Earth
38. Meteorites and the Earth
39. Overview of known Earth-impacts
40. Meteor showers
41. Test questions
42. Cross-curricular activities