planets solar system

According to the official position of the International Astronomical Union (IAU), an organization that assigns names to astronomical objects, there are only 8 planets.

Pluto was removed from the category of planets in 2006. because in the Kuiper belt are objects that are larger / or equal in size to Pluto. Therefore, even if it is taken as a full-fledged celestial body, then it is necessary to add Eris to this category, which has almost the same size with Pluto.

As defined by MAC, there are 8 known planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

All planets are divided into two categories depending on their physical characteristics: terrestrial group and gas giants.

Schematic representation of the location of the planets

terrestrial planets

Mercury

The smallest planet in the solar system has a radius of only 2440 km. The period of revolution around the Sun, for ease of understanding, equated to the earth's year, is 88 days, while Mercury has time to complete a revolution around its own axis only one and a half times. Thus, its day lasts approximately 59 Earth days. For a long time it was believed that this planet is always turned to the Sun by the same side, since the periods of its visibility from the Earth were repeated with a frequency approximately equal to four Mercury days. This misconception was dispelled with the advent of the possibility of using radar research and conducting constant observations using space stations. The orbit of Mercury is one of the most unstable; not only the speed of movement and its distance from the Sun change, but also the position itself. Anyone interested can observe this effect.

Mercury in color, as seen by the MESSENGER spacecraft

Mercury's proximity to the Sun has caused it to experience the largest temperature fluctuations of any of the planets in our system. The average daytime temperature is about 350 degrees Celsius, and the nighttime temperature is -170 °C. Sodium, oxygen, helium, potassium, hydrogen and argon have been identified in the atmosphere. There is a theory that it was previously a satellite of Venus, but so far this remains unproven. It has no satellites of its own.

Venus

The second planet from the Sun, the atmosphere of which consists almost entirely of carbon dioxide. It is often called the Morning Star and the Evening Star, because it is the first of the stars to become visible after sunset, just as before dawn it continues to be visible even when all other stars have disappeared from view. The percentage of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is 96%, there is relatively little nitrogen in it - almost 4%, and water vapor and oxygen are present in very small amounts.

Venus in the UV spectrum

Such an atmosphere creates a greenhouse effect, the temperature on the surface because of this is even higher than that of Mercury and reaches 475 ° C. Considered the slowest, the Venusian day lasts 243 Earth days, which is almost equal to a year on Venus - 225 Earth days. Many call it the sister of the Earth because of the mass and radius, the values ​​​​of which are very close to the earth's indicators. The radius of Venus is 6052 km (0.85% of the earth). There are no satellites, like Mercury.

The third planet from the Sun and the only one in our system where there is liquid water on the surface, without which life on the planet could not develop. At least life as we know it. The radius of the Earth is 6371 km and, unlike the rest celestial bodies of our system, more than 70% of its surface is covered with water. The rest of the space is occupied by the continents. Another feature of the earth is tectonic plates hidden under the planet's mantle. At the same time, they are able to move, albeit at a very low speed, which over time causes a change in the landscape. The speed of the planet moving along it is 29-30 km / s.

Our planet from space

One rotation around its axis takes almost 24 hours, and a complete orbit lasts 365 days, which is much longer in comparison with the nearest neighboring planets. The Earth day and year are also taken as a standard, but this is done only for the convenience of perceiving time intervals on other planets. The Earth has one natural satellite, the Moon.

Mars

The fourth planet from the Sun, known for its rarefied atmosphere. Since 1960, Mars has been actively explored by scientists from several countries, including the USSR and the USA. Not all research programs have been successful, but water found in some areas suggests that primitive life exists on Mars, or existed in the past.

The brightness of this planet allows you to see it from Earth without any instruments. Moreover, once every 15-17 years, during the Opposition, it becomes the brightest object in the sky, eclipsing even Jupiter and Venus.

The radius is almost half that of the earth and is 3390 km, but the year is much longer - 687 days. He has 2 satellites - Phobos and Deimos .

Visual model of the solar system

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• Sun

  The sun is a star, which is a hot ball of hot gases at the center of our solar system. Its influence extends far beyond the orbits of Neptune and Pluto. Without the Sun and its intense energy and heat, there would be no life on Earth. There are billions of stars, like our Sun, scattered throughout the Milky Way galaxy.

• Mercury

  Sun-scorched Mercury is only slightly larger than Earth's moon. Like the Moon, Mercury is practically devoid of an atmosphere and cannot smooth out the traces of impact from the fall of meteorites, therefore, like the Moon, it is covered with craters. The day side of Mercury is very hot on the Sun, and on the night side the temperature drops hundreds of degrees below zero. In the craters of Mercury, which are located at the poles, there is ice. Mercury makes one revolution around the Sun in 88 days.

• Venus

  Venus is a world of monstrous heat (even more than on Mercury) and volcanic activity. Similar in structure and size to Earth, Venus is covered in a thick and toxic atmosphere that creates a strong greenhouse effect. This scorched world is hot enough to melt lead. Radar images through the mighty atmosphere revealed volcanoes and deformed mountains. Venus rotates in the opposite direction from the rotation of most planets.

• Earth is an ocean planet. Our home, with its abundance of water and life, makes it unique in our solar system. Other planets, including several moons, also have ice deposits, atmospheres, seasons, and even weather, but only on Earth did all these components come together in such a way that life became possible.

• Mars

  Although details of the surface of Mars are difficult to see from Earth, telescope observations show that Mars has seasons and white spots at the poles. For decades, people have assumed that the bright and dark areas on Mars are patches of vegetation and that Mars might be a suitable place for life, and that water exists in the polar caps. When the Mariner 4 spacecraft flew by Mars in 1965, many of the scientists were shocked to see pictures of the bleak, cratered planet. Mars turned out to be a dead planet. More recent missions, however, have shown that Mars holds many mysteries that have yet to be solved.

• Jupiter

  Jupiter is the most massive planet in our solar system, has four large satellites and many small moons. Jupiter forms a kind of miniature solar system. To turn into a full-fledged star, Jupiter had to become 80 times more massive.

• Saturn

  Saturn is the most distant of the five planets that were known before the invention of the telescope. Like Jupiter, Saturn is made up mostly of hydrogen and helium. Its volume is 755 times that of the Earth. Winds in its atmosphere reach speeds of 500 meters per second. These fast winds, combined with heat rising from the planet's interior, cause the yellow and golden streaks we see in the atmosphere.

• Uranus

  The first planet found with a telescope, Uranus was discovered in 1781 by astronomer William Herschel. The seventh planet is so far from the Sun that one revolution around the Sun takes 84 years.

• Neptune

  Nearly 4.5 billion kilometers from the Sun, distant Neptune rotates. It takes 165 years to complete one revolution around the Sun. It is invisible to the naked eye due to its vast distance from Earth. Interestingly, its unusual elliptical orbit intersects with the orbit of the dwarf planet Pluto, which is why Pluto is inside Neptune's orbit for about 20 out of 248 years during which it makes one revolution around the Sun.

• Pluto

  Tiny, cold and incredibly distant, Pluto was discovered in 1930 and has long been considered the ninth planet. But after the discovery of Pluto-like worlds even further away, Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006.

The planets are giants

There are four gas giants located beyond the orbit of Mars: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune. They are in the outer solar system. They differ in their massiveness and gas composition.

Planets of the solar system, not to scale

Jupiter

The fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet in our system. Its radius is 69912 km, it is 19 times larger than the Earth and only 10 times smaller than the Sun. A year on Jupiter is not the longest in the solar system, lasting 4333 Earth days (incomplete 12 years). His own day has a duration of about 10 Earth hours. The exact composition of the planet's surface has not yet been determined, but it is known that krypton, argon and xenon are present on Jupiter in much larger quantities than on the Sun.

There is an opinion that one of the four gas giants is actually a failed star. This theory is also supported by the largest number of satellites, of which Jupiter has many - as many as 67. To imagine their behavior in the orbit of the planet, a fairly accurate and clear model of the solar system is needed. The largest of them are Callisto, Ganymede, Io and Europa. At the same time, Ganymede is the largest satellite of the planets in the entire solar system, its radius is 2634 km, which is 8% larger than the size of Mercury, the smallest planet in our system. Io has the distinction of being one of only three moons with an atmosphere.

Saturn

The second largest planet and the sixth largest in the solar system. In comparison with other planets, the composition is most similar to the Sun chemical elements. The surface radius is 57,350 km, the year is 10,759 days (almost 30 Earth years). A day here lasts a little longer than on Jupiter - 10.5 Earth hours. By the number of satellites, it is not far behind its neighbor - 62 versus 67. The largest satellite of Saturn is Titan, just like Io, which is distinguished by the presence of an atmosphere. Slightly smaller than it, but no less famous for this - Enceladus, Rhea, Dione, Tethys, Iapetus and Mimas. It is these satellites that are the objects for the most frequent observation, and therefore we can say that they are the most studied in comparison with the rest.

For a long time, the rings on Saturn were considered a unique phenomenon, inherent only to him. Only recently it was found that all gas giants have rings, but the rest are not so clearly visible. Their origin has not yet been established, although there are several hypotheses about how they appeared. In addition, it was recently discovered that Rhea, one of the satellites of the sixth planet, also has some kind of rings.

Asteroid Vesta 4 was discovered in 1802, the number 4 in its name means that it became the fourth known asteroid (the asteroid Ceres was the first, it was discovered in 1801). Vesta is the third largest known asteroid, measuring 525 km across. But it is the brightest of the known asteroids, and at optimal conditions, when its luminosity reaches the 6th magnitude, it can be seen with the naked eye.

Its almost circular orbit lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. It is also known that Vesta rotates around its own axis with a period of 5.43 hours. Astronomers believe that Vesta is not a fragment that was once repulsed from some large space object, but a real small planet that formed at about the same time as the "big" planets. Vesta (like our Earth) has a core, mantle and crust. This conclusion was made on the basis of Vesta's observations with the Hubble Space Telescope. His images show traces of lava flows flowing from the bowels of the asteroid several billion years ago, when it had a molten core. True, there is no atmosphere on Vesta; for this, the asteroid has too little gravitational force. Even if some gases were once ejected to the surface during the lava eruption, they have long flown into space.

Well, more recently, hydrates and hydroxylates were discovered on this asteroid, that is, minerals whose crystals contain water molecules (hydrates) and OH hydroxyl groups (hydroxylates). These studies were carried out using a British infrared telescope with a diameter of 3.8 m, installed on Mauna Key in Hawaii. Moreover, it turned out that these minerals are of "non-local" origin. They ended up on the surface of the asteroid as a result of impacts from other smaller celestial bodies - meteorites belonging to the category of carbonaceous chondrites. It is these meteorites that contain substances that could have something to do with the emergence of life on Earth - hydrated minerals, hydrocarbons and amino acids.

About the search for a planet that never existed, about the confusion with the word "asteroid" and about the contribution of the musician to astronomy, our daily column "History of Science" tells.

Usually the first of January is not the most fertile time for scientific discoveries. At least since the tradition of celebrating the New Year on this day has been established. Nevertheless, one of the most important observational discoveries in 19th-century astronomy happened not just on the first of January, but on the very first evening of the new century.

However, the history of this discovery began in 1766, when the German physicist and mathematician Johann Daniel Titius proposed a rule that seemed to obey the distances of the planets of the solar system to the sun. Six years later, Johann Bode refined and popularized it, and nine years later it became widely known, because Uranus, discovered by William Herschel in 1781, fit perfectly into the rule. And here the most interesting began.

The Titius-Bode rule perfectly described all the existing planets, but left room for one more - at a distance of about 2.8 astronomical units from the Sun, between Mars and Jupiter. The astronomers set to work. In 1800, a group of 24 astronomers "Heavenly Guard" was even created, led by the German Hungarian Franz von Zach. They combed the sky daily through the most powerful telescopes of the time, but luck did not smile on them.

Giuseppe Piazzi, an astronomer with a theological education, worked at the Palermo Observatory. And he was not looking for a new planet, he was going to observe the 87th star from Lacaille's catalog of zodiac stars. But I saw that there was another star next to it, which Piazzi initially mistook for a comet. It happened on the evening of January 1, 1801.

A stormy revival began among astronomers: new planet found! Piazzi was immediately included in the Heavenly Guard. True, the final confirmation of the discovery took exactly a year. Piazzi told about the discovery back in January to his friend Bode, the publication happened only in September. By the way, I had to connect the later famous Carl Gauss. The 24-year-old mathematician, specifically for the case of Ceres Ferdinand (as Piazzi named his planet in honor of King Ferdinand III of Sicily), developed a universal method for calculating the orbit of a celestial body using just three observations. On December 31, 1801, Franz von Zach and another future famous asteroid hunter, Heinrich Olbers, finally confirmed the discovery.

The question is closed? Nothing like this. "Heavenly Guard" in the person of Olbers already in March 1802 discovered another planet - Pallas. In the same place, in the same "lacuna of Titius - Bode". Yes, and it became clear that the planets are obviously very small: in a telescope they were visible as stars, in contrast to the hazy spots of comets or planetary disks. At the request of Herschel, his friend, the English astronomer Charles Burney, coined a new term - an asteroid (that is, similar to stars).

So appeared new type celestial body. However, the question of whether Ceres can be called an asteroid is again being discussed. The fact is that, as you know, in 2006, the International Astronomical Union deprived Pluto of the status of a planet, introducing the new term “dwarf planet”. Such are considered celestial bodies that revolve around the Sun, having sufficient mass to become a ball, but insufficient to clear the vicinity of their orbit from other celestial bodies. But not only Pluto became a dwarf planet. Ceres also received such a “title” (quickly enough, the addition of “Ferdinand” disappeared, the German name “Hera” too, and only in Greece she is called Demeter).

On June 9, 2002, specialists from the American town of Socorro working at the observatory discovered a huge space object that is heading towards the earth. After the discovery, the object was named NT 7 and the danger level coefficient. 0.025. Such a meteorite will pass at a distance from the Earth by more than 61 million km.

Of course, we will learn about the end of the world on February 1 only if we survive the one that was scheduled by scientists for the Old New Year. Another asteroid is flying towards the earth and, as they say in NASA, it may well collide with our planet. Will the world end on February 1, 2019 or is it another media horror story?

Talking about a collision of such an object with our planet is at least ridiculous, given that the prediction scheduled for January 13 has not happened yet. But still, many conspiracy theorists say that an asteroid is flying towards the planet and will collide with it at 11:47.

According to the director of the Russian Academy of Sciences B. Shustov, in fact, you should not worry about NT 7. If this asteroid carried some kind of danger to our planet, it would have a name, for example, as the most dangerous asteroid Pallas.

This object was discovered in June 2002. This was done by the observatory specialists in American city Socorro. This body received the name in the form of marking - NT7. It moves quite specifically and crosses the orbit of the Earth and Mars.

According to scientists, the collision will occur on February 1 this year. So the danger rating of the asteroid, as already mentioned, is 0.025.

If we look at the situation more closely, then the chance of a collision is equal to 1 in a million. Therefore, already on August 1, 2002, the experts removed given asteroid from the list of those that can harm the planet.

The diameter of such a celestial body is 1.407 km. It moves at a speed of about 30 km per second. The speed of the orbital movement is 20.927 m / s. or 75.3372 km/h. The magnitude is 17.22 m. Well, the distance at which it must pass from the earth is 61 million km.

It is believed that the most dangerous asteroid for our planet is Pallas, which will cross the orbit in 2020, namely on January 30. It will pass at a record distance of only 4 million km. At least that's NASA's opinion.

At first, NASA talked about the impact on February 1st. But then the information changed. The latest data suggests that the asteroid will bypass our planet at a distance that is safe for humanity. Calculations were made that ruled out the danger.

But events can develop quite differently. Accurate data may not tell us for obvious reasons - in order to avoid panic. During this time, the first persons of the state will have time to go deep into the bunkers and save their lives. Well, on the other hand, the military power of large states can destroy it even before it reaches the Earth.

The force of a collision with such an asteroid would be enormous. It is compared with 30 million charges nuclear weapons, which was once dropped on Hiroshima. Or with 450 tons of TNT. For us, this can have the following consequences:

• The magnetic poles will shift;
• Several continents may disappear;
• Volcanoes will wake up;
• There will be global cooling due to uplifted dirt;
• MO level will change;
• Many living beings and plants will perish;
• Colossal territories will be flooded or dried up.

Each problem can trigger the next and this will cause more global violations.

Near the Earth all the time there is a mass of meteorites, which can be small or large, reaching several kilometers. To date, scientists are monitoring more than seven thousand objects near the planet. Of course, this does not mean that one of them will fall to Earth today, but this possibility cannot be ruled out either.

As you know, in all legends or prophecies that tell about the end of the world, there are references to certain prerequisites that necessarily arise before the onset of a global catastrophe.

So, for example, in the Bible, these are the messengers of the apocalypse bringing natural disasters to mankind, while Nostradamus has a series of tragic facts leading to the destruction of the planet. What they all have in common is that they are massive, destructive, and virtually irreversible.

In our time, there are more than a dozen examples of such cataclysms, each of which is easily suitable for the role of a sign of the coming end of the world.

Take, for example, the ever-emerging wars in the Middle East, the increasing frequency of natural disasters, or the growing tension in the world political arena, where, after analyzing the facts, it becomes clear to everyone that the world is on the verge of a major catastrophe.

How and when it will overtake us is not yet clear, although some well-known clairvoyants have several versions on this matter.

Michel Nostradamus

Astrologers most often express their theories about the possible end of the world by analyzing the situation heavenly bodies in relation to our planet. The most famous and authoritative member of this cohort of prophets is Michel Nostradamus, who described in his writings the events for several centuries to come.

His followers are confident that this man, who lived in the Middle Ages, was able to see the future, and each of his quatrains carries a lot of useful information those who can understand it correctly.

The people who deciphered the books of the seer claim that dozens of cataclysms are described there, which should happen at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

This may happen in 2019 global war with involvement in fighting almost all continents. It will not last long, but the wounds after it will remain for long millennia. And no one will emerge victorious from this conflict - there will only be losers.

Despite such sad predictions, Nostradamus also speaks of the flourishing of mankind on the ruins of dead empires. That, only when faced with the threat of complete extinction, people will be able to reconsider their views on life and direct all their energy to creation.

Seraphim Vyritsky

Father Seraphim is one of those predictors whose words come true in the vast majority of cases. In particular, he predicted the persecution of Christians during the period of building communism in our country and the death of the big red empire at the end of the 20th century.

Regarding 2019, he said that there would be big changes in the global balance of power. The countries of America and Europe will lose their power and give way to Asia. China will become the main geopolitical player and financial center.

Russia, on the other hand, will strengthen spiritually, but at the same time it will lose some of its territories, they will be assimilated by people who came from neighboring countries. Wars will arise everywhere and more than a dozen states will suffer until the moment when the peoples do not understand where the world's evil actually lurks and exterminate it with their own hands.

The prerequisites for such events can be easily discerned today. The centers of world production have long been located in Asian countries, and the main innovations are being developed here. Very soon financial centers will appear in China, India and Singapore, which only confirms the words of the great prophet.

Matrona of Moscow

Every year, hundreds of pilgrims rush to the places where this great healer and clairvoyant lived. Despite such a difficult fate that befell the Matrona of Moscow, she had an incredible gift to look into the future not only of a particular person, but of entire states. She made her predictions quite rarely, but they all certainly came true.

Regarding the coming 2019, the fortuneteller spoke of a great clash of two worlds of true and false, where evil will seek to take possession of the souls of mankind by all means. At this time, everything will be mixed up and people, like blind men, will follow sweet speeches, trampling on righteousness.

After such a fall, the cups of heavenly wrath will be poured out on the earth and the judgment, which has been awaited for more than two thousand years, will be carried out.

If you look at the current political situation, it is not difficult to see that in fact today the world is on the verge of a global catastrophe. There has not been such an aggravation as it has been since the Caribbean crisis, when the USSR and the USA entered into an open confrontation off the coast of Cuba.

Every day, the contradictions between our state and Western countries are only getting worse, and no one can say for sure what it threatens people with, and whether this conflict can be resolved peacefully. Therefore, it remains only to hope for the prudence of those in power, because the third big war will be the last.

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Asteroids are celestial bodies that were formed due to the mutual attraction of dense gas and dust orbiting our Sun at an early stage of its formation. Some of these objects, like an asteroid, have reached enough mass to form a molten core. At the moment Jupiter reached its mass, most of the planetosimals (future protoplanets) were split and ejected from the original asteroid belt between Mars and. During this epoch, part of the asteroids formed due to the collision of massive bodies within the impact gravitational field Jupiter.

Orbit classification

Asteroids are classified by features such as visible reflections sunlight and characteristics of the orbits.

According to the characteristics of the orbits, asteroids are combined into groups, among which families can be distinguished. A group of asteroids is considered to be a certain number of such bodies whose orbital characteristics are similar, that is, semi-axis, eccentricity and orbital inclination. A family of asteroids should be considered a group of asteroids that do not just move in close orbits, but are probably fragments of one large body, and were formed as a result of its split.

The largest of the known families can contain several hundred asteroids, while the most compact ones - within ten. Approximately 34% of asteroid bodies are members of asteroid families.

As a result of the formation of most groups of asteroids in the solar system, their parent body was destroyed, however, there are also groups whose parent body survived (for example).

Classification by spectrum

The spectral classification is based on the spectrum of electromagnetic radiation, which is the result of the asteroid reflecting sunlight. Registration and processing of this spectrum makes it possible to study the composition of a celestial body and assign an asteroid to one of the following classes:

• Group of carbon asteroids or C-group. Representatives of this group consist mostly of carbon, as well as elements that were part of the protoplanetary disk of our solar system in the early stages of its formation. Hydrogen and helium, as well as other volatile elements, are practically absent in carbonaceous asteroids, but various minerals are possible. Another hallmark such bodies have a low albedo - reflectivity, which requires the use of more powerful observation tools than in the study of asteroids of other groups. More than 75% of the asteroids in the solar system are representatives of the C-group. The most famous bodies of this group are Hygiea, Pallas, and once - Ceres.
• A group of silicon asteroids or S-group. Asteroids of this type are composed mainly of iron, magnesium and some other rocky minerals. For this reason, silicon asteroids are also called stony asteroids. Such bodies have a fairly high albedo, which allows you to observe some of them (for example, Irida) simply with binoculars. The number of silicon asteroids in the solar system is 17% of total, and they are most common up to 3 astronomical units from the Sun. The largest representatives of the S-group: Juno, Amphitrite and Herculina.

Representative of class S asteroids

• Group of iron asteroids or X-group. The least studied group of asteroids, the abundance of which in the solar system is inferior to the other two spectral classes. The composition of such celestial bodies is not yet well understood, but it is known that most of them contain high percent metals, sometimes nickel and iron. It is assumed that these asteroids are fragments of the nuclei of some protoplanets that formed on early stages formation of the solar system. They can have both high and low rate albedo.

Asteroid Ceres is the largest in the asteroid belt. Since 2006, it has been considered a dwarf planet. It has a spherical shape, the crust consists of water ice and minerals, and the core is made of stone.

Asteroid Pallas- rich in silicon, its diameter is 532 km.

Asteroid Vesta- the heaviest asteroid has a diameter of 530 km. Core from heavy metal, bark from rocks.

Asteroid Hygiea- the most common type of asteroid with carbonaceous content. Diameter 407 km.

Asteroid Interamnia- refers to asteroids of rare spectral class F. Diameter 326 km.

Asteroid Europpa- has an elongated orbit, the diameter is 302.5 km. Has a porous surface.

Asteroid David- diameter from 270 to 326 km.

Asteroid Sylvia- has at least two satellites. Its diameter is 232 km.

Asteroid Hector– The size is 370 × 195 × 205 km with a peanut-like shape. Consists of rocks and ice.

Asteroid Euphrosyne- size from 248 to 270 km.

History of asteroid discoveries

In 1766, the German mathematician Johann Titius developed a formula that allows you to calculate the approximate radii of the orbits of the planets in the solar system. The efficiency of this formula was confirmed after the discovery in 1781, the orbital radius of which coincides with the predicted value. Later, a group of astronomers was formed, which was engaged in the search for a planet whose orbit lay between Jupiter and Mars.

Thus, astronomers stumbled upon a large number of different celestial bodies, which, nevertheless, could not be classified as planets. Among them were such asteroids as Pallas, Juno and Vesta. It is noteworthy that the first discovered asteroid was Ceres, which was also discovered by the Italian scientist Giuseppe Piazzi, who is not listed in the aforementioned group of astronomers.

After failing to find a planet between Jupiter and Mars, astronomers gave up. However, over time, the asteroid belt began to attract more and more scientists, thanks to whom more than 670,000 asteroids are known today, 422,00 of which have their own number, and 19,000 have names.

Exploring asteroids today

Generally speaking, there are only two reasons for conducting research on asteroids. The first is a significant contribution to fundamental science. Thanks to such research, humanity is developing an understanding of the structure of the solar system, as well as its formation, structure; understanding the behavior of the universe and its constituents. Astronomers are actively studying the composition of asteroids to understand their nature. All of the above does not give a definite understanding of the benefits of studying these celestial bodies, so we will give the following example.

Model of the formation of modern terrestrial natural conditions provides for the formation of water on the surface of our planet. However, as is known, at the first stages of its evolution, it was too hot to leave water reserves on it after cooling. It was assumed that the water was later brought by comets, but thanks to recent studies of the composition of their water, it turned out that the water in comets is too different from the earth. In 2010, scientists discovered ice on one of the largest main belt asteroids, Themis. This suggests that water was brought to Earth by asteroids. In addition, hydrocarbons and some molecules were also found on Themis, which could serve as the conception of life on Earth.

The second reason for studying asteroids is more relevant for ordinary inhabitants of the planet Earth - this is a possible threat from these space bodies. You can learn about what can happen when an asteroid falls to Earth from many disaster films. Therefore, in order to avoid such situations, astronomers are closely monitoring asteroids that are dangerous for earthlings. One of these objects is Apophis, whose diameter is approximately 325 m. For comparison, the diameter is 17 meters. In 2029, the trajectory of Apophis will pass near the Earth (at an altitude of 35,000 km), in 2036, the possibility of a collision is not excluded at all.