FREE ESSAY ON ASTEROIDS

ASTEROIDS

In our solar system today there are over 30 000 asteroids flying around in all directions
colliding with other asteroids and planets not caring about the destruction they might
convey. Our planet Earth is caught right in the middle of all of this action and is
liable to entire extinction of any life forms on the planet if a large enough asteroid
crosses its path. Any one single asteroid has the possibility to erase thousands of years
of history and wipeout the human race as we know it. 
Asteroids are large or small chunks of rock and metal flying around space up to speeds of
80 000 km/h. These chunks were believed to have formed millions of years ago during the
big bang. These rocks didn't form any planets and were stuck floating around space on
their own or in the gravitation of the asteroid belt. This belt is approximately 300
million miles from the Sun and it contains thousands of asteroids some being miles in
diameter. Another theory of the formation of asteroids is that a planet between Mars and
Jupiter once existed and after many years it exploded into thousands of pieces that are
still revolving around the sun in the form of an asteroid belt. Other asteroids are
formed when large meteors collide with large asteroids creating more small ones. These
meteors can also collide with planets breaking off chunks of the crust into space. Ceres
is believed to be the biggest asteroid that was in space at one point in time. Ceres was
believed to be 600 miles wide making up 1/3 of the total mass of all asteroids. Ceres was
the first asteroid discovered and was found in 1801. There are two main types of
asteroids; the first dominates the outer part of the belt and are found to be rich in
carbon, the second group are located in the inside of the belt and are found to be rich
in minerals. The average temperature of the surface of an asteroid is approximately -73
degrees C. 
Many people don't know that every year over 50 000 small asteroids called meteors hit the
Earth every year. These meteors are the outside layer of larger asteroids that have been
chipped off or are the surface of other planets that have detached from their positions
when hit with larger asteroids. Asteroids sometimes align with Earth when meteors flying
through space collide with other asteroids in the belt causing pieces to break off and
head in all directions. Sometimes these pieces just happen to get aligned with Earth.
However, scientists are trying to discover a way in which they can detonate a nuclear
bomb close to the asteroid causing it to change rotation and therefore change its course.
This is very dangerous because if the asteroid explodes it will make even more of a mess
when hundreds of pieces are then on course with the Earth. 
Asteroids are found all over space but are most abundant in the asteroid belt between
Mars and Jupiter. This belt holds about 2000 asteroids all of different shapes and sizes.
This belt has its own gravitational pull and all of the asteroids in it revolve around
the Sun. It is believed that this belt was formed when planet X exploded. Although the
majority of asteroids are found in this belt and are generally stuck in its gravitational
pull, they are sometimes jarred from their positions from the impact of other asteroids
that are constantly floating through space. 
Although asteroids could destroy Earth if they come in contact with it, small meteors
that hit Earth are found to be great discoveries. These small space rocks that have been
chipped off of other planets such as Saturn or Mars are a great way of studying other
planets surfaces without having to travel millions of miles for samples. They come to us.
If it wasn't for asteroids hitting the Earth, we might not be here today. Millions of
years ago when the Earth was forming it was a giant ball made of liquid molten. Over a
long period of time asteroids hit the Earth at tremendous velocities causing them to join
the molten and create a crust for life. After many years of this, the Earth was formed
from hundreds of asteroids combined into one large planet. Asteroids are found to be one
of the most fascinating and dangerous things in space. This is because it is difficult to
spot every asteroid close to our planet and at any time an asteroid may be spotted very
close to Earth with too short a notice to stop it. Asteroid tracking should be very
important to the world and more time and money should be put into it. These objects could
mean the end of mankind all together.
Today we find over 150 craters on our planet some being a few kilometers in diameter. If
asteroids this big hit our planet today many living things would be destroyed within
thousands of miles of the impact point. This shows us evidence that many asteroids have
collided with this planet in the past that could have ended civilization. Today there is
known to be about 163 asteroids that are flying through our solar system that are found
hazardous to Earth. In 1997 a mile wide asteroid passed within the distance of the Earth
and the Moon when it came 
40 000 km from hitting us. This seems to be a lot of room to spare but it isn't when you
take into account the vast amount of space in our solar system. Scientists believe that
an asteroid is going to be the closest to Earth on October 26, 2028. Because of the
danger asteroids pose NASA funded a program called space watch to try and track asteroids
close to Earth. All together NASA spends about $3.5 million US tracking asteroids. This
gets very difficult because it takes 10 to 30 years of notice to track an asteroid on its
way towards Earth. Asteroids are classified as hazardous if they're bigger than 1 km wide
and found within 8 million kilometers of Earth. It is very probable that a large asteroid
will hit the Earth in the future because of the planet's past experience with asteroid
collisions. Scientists estimate that an asteroid more than 800 m in diameter hits the
Earth every million years and a smaller one hits every century. An asteroid bigger than 1
km would mean the end of about 30% of the World's population. This size of an asteroid
would be the equivalent explosion to 2 million Hiroshima bombs. This explosion would
wipeout population by the destruction of all living creatures within a hundred mile
radius as well as blocking off the Sun with dust and rock particles for weeks or even
months. 
Asteroids are probably the deadliest force that our solar system can produce, one strike
could put man back in the dark ages and would kill almost the entire population of our
planet. It is for this reason that scientists should focus more on understanding
asteroids and research more into the defense of our planet. At the moment we only know
where a fraction of the asteroids out there are. The asteroid that could destroy our
planet could only be a year away and we don't even know it exists. 
Bibliography
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