PRESENTATION OUTLINE
This is the Manicouagan Crater: fifth largest known impact crater. This crater is located in Quebec, Canada. It was created about 212 million years ago.
This is the vredevort crater
the first asteroid that was correctly predicted to hit our planet — It had impact craters on the brain. Earth has about 175 known impact craters, but surely our planet has endured more bashing than that in its history.
Barringer Crater: well preserved. While this crater isn’t all that big, what’s most impressive about Barringer Crater in Arizona (USA) is how well preserved it is. Measuring 1.2 km across and 175 m deep, Barringer Crater was formed about 50,000 years ago by the impact of an iron meteorite, probably about 50 m across and weighing several hundred thousand tons
This is the Aorounga Crater: possible triple crater. The main Aorounga Crater in Chad, Africa, visible in this radar image from space, shows a concentric ring structure that is about 17 kilometers wide.
This is the Clearwater Craters: two for the price of one. Twin, lake-filled impact craters in Quebec, Canada were probably formed simultaneously, about 290 million years ago, by two separate but probably related meteorite impacts. The larger crater, Clearwater Lake West has a diameter of 32 km, and Clearwater Lake East is 22 km wide.
This is the Ikeya Seki Comet Ikeya–Seki, formally designated C/1965 S1, 1965 VIII, and 1965f, was a long-period comet discovered independently by Kaoru Ikeya and Tsutomu Seki. First observed as a faint telescopic object on September 18, 1965, the first calculations of its orbit suggested that on October 21, it would pass just 450,000 km above the Sun's surface, and would probably become extremely bright.
This is Halley's Comet or Comet Halley (/ˈhæli/ or /ˈheɪli/), officially designated 1P/Halley,[2] is the best-known of the short-period comets and is visible from Earth every 75–76 years.Orbital period
75.3 a[2]
Inclination 162.3°
Physical characteristics
Dimensions 15×8 km,[3] 11 km (mean diameter)[2]
Mass 2.2×1014 kg[4]
Mean density
0.6[5] (estimates range from 0.2 to 1.5 g/cm3[6])
Escape velocity
~0.002 km/s
Sidereal rotation period
2.2 d (52.8 h) (?)[7]
Albedo 0.04[8]
Apparent magnitude
28.2 (in 2003)[9]
This is Comet West
up to 70,000 AU[2]
(1.1 light-years)
Perihelion 0.197 AU[1][3]
Eccentricity 0.99997[1] (near parabolic)
Orbital period chaotic (more than 250 thousand years and maybe millions of years)
Inclination 43.0664°[1]
Last perihelion February 25, 1976[1][3]
Next perihelion unknown
This is Hale-Bopp
Aphelion 370.8 AU[1]Comet Hale–Bopp (formally designated C/1995 O1) was perhaps the most widely observed comet of the 20th century and one of the brightest seen for many decades. It was visible to the naked eye for a record 18 months, twice as long as the previous record holder, the Great Comet of 1811.
Perihelion 0.914 AU[1]
Semi-major axis 186 AU
Eccentricity 0.995086
Orbital period 2520[2]–2533[1] yr
(Barycentric 2391 yr)[3]
Inclination 89.4°
Last perihelion April 1, 1997[1]
Next perihelion ~4385[4]
DWARF PLANETS IN OUR SOLAR SYSTEM
Pluto (minor-planet designation 134340 Pluto) is the largest object in the Kuiper belt,[i][j] and the tenth-most-massive body observed directly orbiting the Sun. It is the second-most-massive known dwarf planet, after Eris. Like other Kuiper-belt objects, Pluto is composed primarily of rock and ice[15] and is relatively small, approximately one-sixth the mass of the Moon and one-third its volume. It has an eccentric and highly inclined orbit that takes it from 30 to 49 AU (4.4–7.4 billion km) from the Sun.
Ceres (minor-planet designation 1 Ceres) /ˈsɪəriːz/ (seer-eez)[18] is the largest object in the asteroid belt, which lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. It is composed of rock and ice, is 950 km (590 mi) in diameter, containing a third of the mass of the asteroid belt. It is the largest asteroid, and the only dwarf planet in the inner Solar System. It was the first asteroid to be discovered, on 1 January 1801 by Giuseppe Piazzi in Palermo, though at first it was considered to be a planet. The unmanned Dawn spacecraft is scheduled to arrive at Ceres in early 2015.
Eris (minor-planet designation 136199 Eris) is the most massive known dwarf planet in the Solar System and the ninth most massive body known to directly orbit the Sun.[c][d] It is estimated to be 2,326 ± 12 kilometres (1,445.3 ± 7.5 mi) in diameter,[9] and 27% more massive than Pluto, or about 0.27% of the Earth's mass.
Haumea, minor-planet designation 136108 Haumea, is a dwarf planet[21] located beyond Neptune's orbit. Just one-third the mass of Pluto,[nb 2] it was discovered in 2004 by a team headed by Mike Brown of Caltech at the Palomar Observatory in the United States and, in 2005, by a team headed by J. L. Ortiz at the Sierra Nevada Observatory in Spain, though the latter claim has been contested. On September 17, 2008, it was recognized as a dwarf planet by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) and named after Haumea, the Hawaiian goddess of childbirth.
Makemake (minor-planet designation 136472 Makemake) is a dwarf planet and perhaps the largest Kuiper belt object (KBO) in the classical population,[nb 2] with a diameter that is about 2/3 the size of Pluto.[10][18] Makemake has no known satellites, which makes it unique among the largest KBOs and means that its mass can only be estimated. Its extremely low average temperature, about 30 K (−243.2 °C), means its surface is covered with methane, ethane, and possibly nitrogen ices.
