- Asteroid Thicket (allthetropes.org)
In science fiction movies and TV, asteroids form a vast, hyperkinetic, obstacle-strewn Death Course: Enormous rocks spin like tops and whiz around all over the place, frequently even smashing into each other. Trying to navigate one is like asking a chicken to cross a busy Los Angeles freeway during rush hour: Small nimble spacecraft flown by skillful Ace Pilots (i.e, the protagonists) may be able to slalom through without getting reduced to space dust, but any pursuing enemy fighter ships will get picked off one-by-one by giant, malevolent space boulders. Any capital ship who can’t just blast a path through them with its Wave Motion Gun will have to rely on their Deflector Shields to bounce the rocks off.
- Meteor Terminology poster (amsmeteors.org)
In a constant effort to create excitement about Science and to increase the level of the general population’s knowledge about Meteor Astronomy, the AMS has decided to create a set of educational posters. All AMS posters are available to print for free.
- Asteroid (Wikipedia)
An asteroid is a minor planet—an object that is neither a true planet nor an identified comet— that orbits within the inner Solar System. They are rocky, metallic, or icy bodies with no atmosphere, classified as C-type (carbonaceous), M-type (metallic), or S-type (silicaceous). The size and shape of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from small rubble piles under a kilometer across and larger than meteoroids, to Ceres, a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter. A body is classified as a comet, not an asteroid, if it shows a coma (tail) when warmed by solar radiation, although recent observations suggest a continuum between these types of bodies.
