A lot of asteroid and comet dust collides with Earth's atmosphere everyday. Assume that 500 tons of mass is added to Earth daily from the millions of meteors that enter our atmosphere. Estimate the time it would take for the Earth's mass to increase 0.2% with this impact rate. Is this mass accumulation significant to Earth as a planet.

A lot of asteroid and comet dust collides with Earth's atmosphere everyday. Assume that 500 tons of mass is added to Earth daily from the millions of meteors that enter our atmosphere. Estimate the time it would take for the Earth's mass to increase 0.2% with this impact rate. Is this mass accumulation significant to Earth as a planet.

Astronomy

1st Edition

ISBN:9781938168284

Author:Andrew Fraknoi; David Morrison; Sidney C. Wolff

Publisher:Andrew Fraknoi; David Morrison; Sidney C. Wolff

Chapter13: Comets And Asteroids: Debris Of The Solar System

Section: Chapter Questions

Problem 19E: We believe that chains of comet fragments like Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9’s have collided not only with...

See similar textbooks

Similar questions

5) What is the ratio of the number of asteroid impacts on the moon to the number of impacts on Earth? Assume the asteroids are originally traveling 15 km/s and use the following data. Mass: 5.97x1024 kg Earth, 7.3x1022 kg moon Radius: 6372 km Earth, 1738 km moon Note we count the number of craters on the moon to infer the number of impacts on Earth because many Earth craters have been hidden by erosion.
The Tunguska asteroid is estimated to have had a diameter of 50 m, and to have produced an explosion equivalent to 10 megatons of TNT (1 megaton = 4.2 x 1015 joules). Assume that the asteroid was a sphere with density 2 g/cm3. Using the kinetic energy formula K = ½ mv2, where m is the mass and v is the speed, to estimate the speed of the asteroid. Assume that all kinetic energy is converted into the energy of the explosion. Give your answer in km/s with one significant figure.
The mass of the planet is approximately 74.8 times the mass of Jupiter. Calculate the average density of the planet. Give your answer in grams per cubic centimeter.
d) The internal density of the comet 67P was measured by the Rosetta space-craft to be approximately p = 400 kg m-³. How close an approach to the Earth could be made by this comet before it is tidally disrupted? Express your answer in units of the Earth's radius. Ignoring the effects of heating and sublimation, state how close this comet could approach the Sun without being tidally disrupted. Express your answer in units of the Solar radius.
(a) Based on the observations, determine the total mass M of the planet. (b) Which moon and planet of our solar system is the team observing? (Use literature.)
You are a planetary scientist studying the atmosphere of Jupiter through a large telescope when you observe an asteroid approaching the planet. This asteroid is large, so you know it is held together by gravity rather than the cohesive forces that hold a large rock together. If the asteroid gets too close to Jupiter, the massive tidal forces will tear it apart, scattering small particles that will add to the ring system. You have calculated the closest distance the asteroid will come to Jupiter. How do you know if the asteroid will survive? a. A measure of the cohesive gravitational force holding such an asteroid together is the gravitational field on the surface due to the mass of the asteroid. This field is independent of the distance of the asteroid from Jupiter. Calculate the gravitational field at the surface of the asteroid due only to the mass of the asteroid. Assume the asteroid has a diameter of 10,000 km and a density of 1300 kg/m3. b. Tidal forces from Jupiter tend to disrupt the asteroid by pulling it apart. The tidal forces depend on the distance between Jupiter and the asteroid. There is a distance between Jupiter and the asteroid known as the Roche limit where the tidal forces are balanced by the asteroids own cohesive gravitational force. If the asteroid is within the Roche limit, it will be torn apart. Figure P7.60 shows Jupiters gravitational field as a function of distance from its center. By looking at this graph, can you determine an approximate value for the Roche limit for this asteroid in the vicinity of this planet? c. What will happen to the Roche limit if we consider an asteroid of lower density? FIGURE P7.60
We believe that chains of comet fragments like Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9’s have collided not only with the jovian planets, but occasionally with their moons. What sort of features would you look for on the outer planet moons to find evidence of such collisions? (As an extra bonus, can you find any images of such features on a moon like Callisto? You can use an online site of planetary images, such as the Planetary Photojournal, at photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov.)
Which of the following events can NOT be explained by a giant impact event? The large metallic core of Mercury The extreme axis tilt of Uranus The formation of the Moon The backwards rotation of Venus
You decide to go on an interstellar mission to explore some of the newly discovered extrasolar planets orbiting the star ROTOR. Your spacecraft arrives in the new system, in which there are five planets. ROTOR is identical to the Sun (in terms of its size, mass, age and composition). From your observations of these planets, you collect the following data: Density Average Distance from star (AU] Planet Mass Radius Albedo Temp. [C] Surf. Press. MOI Rotation [Earth = 1] (Earth = 1] [g/cm³] [Atm.] Period (Hours] Factor SIEVER EUGENIA 4.0 0.001 2.0 0.1 5.0 1.0 0.3 20 0.8 N/A 3.0 0.2 N/A 0.3 0.4 0.35 20 10 500 1000 5.0 4.0 0.5 0.8 0.4 0.7 -50 MARLENE CRILE 1.0 1.0 3.0 8.0 1,5 0.0 0.50 0.50 0.25 150 0.4 JANUS 100 12 0.1 10 -80 0.2 200 Figure 1: А Rotor 850 890 900 Wavelength (nm) A Sun В C 860 900 910 Wavelength (nm) 2414 a as
The short-period comets do NOT have randomly oriented orbits because a. they are affected by the sun’s gravity. b. they are affected by the solar wind. c. they formed in the Kuiper belt, a belt-shaped region in the plane of the solar system. d. their orbits are altered by the drag of their tails in the solar wind. e. they all were originally objects ejected from the asteroid belt.
Which of the following is least reasonable regarding impact craters? Group of answer choices The size and shape of the crater and the amount of material excavated depends on factors such as the velocity and mass of the impacting body and the geology of the surface. Craters are most often are circular but more elongate craters can be produced with impactors striking the surface at very low angles. The Moon has more craters than the Earth because of its strong tidal force on the impactors. Objects from space typically hit Earth at about 20 km/s ande produce craters that can be approximately 20 times larger in diameter than the impacting objects. The faster the incoming impactor, the larger the crater.
Suppose the average mass of each of 20,000 asteroids in the solar system is 1017 kg. Compare the total mass of these asteroids to the mass of Earth. Assuming a spherical shape and a density of 3000 kg/m3, estimate the diameter of an asteroid having this average mass.