In this lesson, students learn some basic facts about asteroids in our solar system. The main focus is on the size of asteroids and how that relates to the potential danger of an asteroid colliding with the Earth. Students are briefly introduced to the destruction that would ensue should a large asteroid hit, as it did 65 million years ago.

This activity poses the question: What would happen if a meteor or comet impacted Earth? Students simulate an impact in a container of sand using various-sized rocks, all while measuring, recording and graphing results and conclusions. Then students brainstorm ways to prevent an object from hitting the Earth.

The solar system has smaller objects like asteroids, meteors and comets that make a big impact. In this story we learn more about these small but interesting objects.

The students will learn about recent meteor strikes and the effects they can have. They will then examine their significance in the history of the planet, and what they do to the surface of a planet when forming a crater. The students will then experimentally determine how the size and impact velocity of a meteorite determine the size of the crater.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Dark matter, cosmic rays, otherworldly lightning, and meteors. Not bad for a day’s work. That’s the ambitious workload researchers have charged to Mini-EUSO, a revolutionary new telescope peering back at earth from aboard the International Space Station. Hitching a ride on a Russian Soyuz rocket, Mini-EUSO docked with the ISS just this past August. Fitted with state-of-the-art optics, its goal is to carry out the first-ever nighttime observations of the earth’s atmosphere at near-ultraviolet wavelengths. This special “UV eye” will turn the atmosphere into a gigantic laboratory for exploring fascinating scientific phenomena—some bound to teach us more about the earth, some that could teach us more about the entire universe. One of Mini-EUSO’s tasks will be to search for traces of a substance known as “strange quark matter”. This matter is generally believed to make up the super-dense core of neutron stars. But it might also be scattered as droplets both big and small across the universe..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This unit begins by introducing students to the historical motivation for space exploration. They learn about the International Space Station, including current and futuristic ideas that engineers are designing to propel space research. Then they learn about the physical properties of the Moon, and think about what types of products engineers would need to design in order for humans to live on the Moon. Lastly, students learn some descriptive facts about asteroids, such as their sizes and how that relates to the potential danger of an asteroid colliding with the Earth.