1. Other bodies in our Solar System

2. They can be as small as a pebble and as large as 1000 km across
Asteroids
Asteroids come in all shapes and sizes. Most are found in the Asteroid Belt, between Mars and Jupiter
There are
They can be as small as a pebble and as large as 1000 km across

3. About 93% are silicate.
On this photo you can see the shadow of the probe that took the photo (just right of the centre) – Hayabusa (from Japan)
Most are made of silicate (stone), but some are made of iron or nickel.

4. Meteors (or Shooting Stars)
Each streak is a piece of rock or dust burning up as it enters our atmosphere. The rock is a meteoroid. They are travelling between 10 and 70 kilometres per second.

5. Some are larger though. If it’s too large and hits…

6. …we have a meteorite
But if they’re even bigger…

7. This can happen!
If you ever see a perfectly round lake there is a very high chance that it is a crater.
This crater in Arizona is 1200 m wide, 200 m deep and was made by a meteorite about 40 m wide.

8. Comets
Big Dirty Snowballs

9. Comets actually have two tails
Comets actually have two tails. The dust tail (yellow) and the ion tail (blue)
The blue tail is made by ions (created by the Sun) and are aimed away from the Sun. The yellow tail is created by the dust from the comet and so is aimed in the direction the comet has just come from. The longest recorded tail is 360 million miles or about four times the Earth-Sun distance

10. Galaxies

11. There are 3 main types of Galaxies
There are actually more dwarf galaxies than ‘normal’ galaxies. These are smaller and usually orbit a larger galaxy. They still fall into these 3 categories.
Spiral
Elliptical
Irregular

12. Our Galaxy, the Milky Way, is a Barred Spiral Galaxy
However this is only a theory of what it looks like. We have never left the Milky Way in order to see what it really looks like.
This is the latest idea of what our Galaxy looks like and where we are in it. Previous estimates placed us on one of the extremities.
We live about here.

13. We can only see part of our galaxy…
You can actually see the Milky Way on a clear night if there are no lights nearby. It sometimes looks like a long thin cloud.

14. More Spiral Galaxies 20 to 100 billion stars
50 to light years across

15. More Elliptical Galaxies

16. Irregular Galaxies
Here you can see two galaxies nearing one another and how one pulls matter away from the other.

18. Galaxies form clusters
The clusters gravity creates a warping of space. This creates a lens effect. We can see this by the circular streaks around the cluster. The streak is a star or galaxy behind the cluster whose light has been bent to form the long thin, curved lines.
We are part of ‘The Local Group’ cluster. This may also be a part of (although this is still being discussed) of the Virgo cluster (more likely we are a satellite cluster of the much larger Virgo cluster).

19. From the Earth we see all these stars and galaxies and see patterns, which we call
Constellations

20. Constellations of the winter sky at sunset

21. Orion the Hunter