Casey Witthohn

Below is a free term papers summary of the paper "Casey Witthohn." If you sign up, you can be reading the rest of this term papers in under two minutes. Registered users should login to view this term paper.

Term Paper Title	Casey Witthohn
# of Words	1651
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	6.6

Casey Witthohn
English 11R-9
Elberth

     COMETS AND ASTEROIDS

     A quick look at the scarred face of the moon provides evidence enough to see that space is not an empty place.  Small bodies of rock and frozen materials are traveling around space at all times.  As far as scientists can tell, they have been since the dawn of time.  These space rocks are known as asteroids, comets, and meteors.  Usually, people look at them as a work of art, or a phenomenon, until they come too close.  Every few years a comet hits the earth with enough impact to topple trees.  These are meteorites.
     Asteroids were once dismissed as the rodents of the sky.  They have different colors and spin periods than any other space rocks.  They are generally small rocks in comparison to the rest of space bodies, but vary from the size of bird house, to the size of a small piece of real estate.  Asteroids usually travel in groups and sometimes form asteroid belts that can wrap around an entire solar system.  There are about 150 known asteroids that travel in a path near the earth, and they are actually called, "near-earth" asteroids.  About 10 percent are bound to hit earth eventually.
     Asteroids ranging from fine dust, to house size rocks make up the belt around Saturn, and the belt on the outside of the orbit of Mars.  These are pieces of larger rocks that were crashed into the remaining pieces after millions of years of crashes.
     Each ring system has distinctive features. Jupiter's rings are tenuous and made mainly of dark particles the size of those in cigarette smoke.  The bright rings of Saturn are made of mainly frozen water in the form of snowballs and chunks of ice.  Saturn has thousands of rings, some twisted, showing off dusty, spooky markings that form and change constantly.  The dark rings of Uranus seem to be made of charcoal or smokey materials.  Uranus has nine main rings, a few seem to breathe moving and expanding, then pulling back in.
     The rings are formed when a comet or asteroid sails very near the surface, tearing off pieces that fly away and are slowed and caught in the gravity of the planet, then spread out.  Another way is when moons are collided or collided into by a large piece of space matter and are shattered and spread out forming rings.
     Comets are bits and pieces of planets that smashed together.  They sometimes possess the pieces and materials from the dawn of our solar system.  Comets have brightness and size variation due to the amount of dust being put o...

This is not the end of the termpaper! Register below to see the complete version of this term paper.

Membership Plans	Credit Card	Check

1 month membership

3 month membership (You Save 50%)

6 month membership (You Save 67%)

Copyright © 2002-2007 Mid Term Papers. All rights reserved. This term papers website is used for research purposes only.
If you have forgotten your username or password, please click here.
If you like to cancel your account, please click here.

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 - 15 - 16 - 17 - 18 - 19 - 20 - 21 - 22