List of minor planets

High school (ages 12+)
Space & Astronomy

Name:

Date:

Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/list-of-minor-planets

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. What is the primary orbital location?Asteroid Belt (between Mars and Jupiter)
2. What is the major compositional classes?C-type (carbonaceous), S-type (silicaceous), M-type (metallic)
3. What are minor planets?Minor planets are tiny worlds like rocky pebbles or icy snowballs that were left over when the solar system formed about 4.6 billion years ago. They are mostly asteroids and still travel through space today.
4. Where do most minor planets live?Most of them are found in the Asteroid Belt, a wide region between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. In this belt the objects are usually millions of kilometers apart, so it isn’t a crowded field of debris.

Minor Planet: A celestial body orbiting the Sun that is smaller than a planet but larger than a meteoroid, often referred to as an asteroid.
Asteroid Belt: A circumstellar disc in the Solar System containing an unusually high number of asteroids, located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
Near-Earth Object (NEO): A small Solar System body whose orbit brings it close to Earth, posing a potential impact hazard.