Howardites

The answer sheet for the worksheet The small bodies of the Solar System. Each answer comes with the reason, so it can be used to mark or to go over the questions with the class.

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KS3 · Ages 11 to 14 (Years 7 to 9)Answer sheet for teachers

Answers: The small bodies of the Solar System

  1. A: The Kuiper beltPluto is one of the icy bodies of the Kuiper belt, the ring that lies beyond Neptune.
  2. B: They are icy and lie beyond NeptuneMain-belt asteroids are rocky or metallic and lie between Mars and Jupiter. Kuiper belt objects are icy and lie beyond Neptune.
  3. A: Where it is, not what it is made ofThe three words describe where the object is: in space, glowing in the air, or on the ground. The material stays the same.
  4. C: A distanceDespite the word 'year', a light year is a distance: how far light travels in a whole year.
  5. A: The Kuiper belt or the Oort cloudComets are icy bodies, and they come from the icy regions far from the Sun: the Kuiper belt and the Oort cloud.
  6. True (Asteroid belt, Kuiper belt, Oort cloud)The asteroid belt lies between Mars and Jupiter, the Kuiper belt beyond Neptune, and the Oort cloud much further out still.
  7. False: the right answer is A meteoroid made a meteor, but there is no meteoriteThe dust was a meteoroid in space and its flash was a meteor. Nothing landed, so there is no meteorite.
  8. An asteroid (accept any answer with the same meaning)Nearly all meteorites are pieces of asteroids. Only a few come from the Moon or Mars, and none has been shown to come from a comet.
  9. Rocky and metallic bodies left over from planet formation (accept any answer with the same meaning)Asteroids are rocky and metallic leftovers from when the planets formed. The icy bodies far out are comets and Kuiper belt objects.
  10. An asteroid (accept any answer with the same meaning)Meteoroids are up to about a metre across. Anything much larger, like this 5 km body, is usually called an asteroid.

Task

Answers will vary. The task comes from the lesson: Draw a scale diagram of the inner Solar System on A4 paper using 1 AU = 4 cm. Mark the Sun, Mercury (0.4 AU), Venus (0.7 AU), Earth (1 AU), Mars (1.5 AU), the asteroid belt (2.1 to 3.3 AU, shaded) and Jupiter (5.2 AU). Saturn is at 9.5 AU and Neptune at 30 AU: how far from the Sun would each be on your scale, and would either fit on the page? Explain why diagrams in books are rarely to scale.

Look for work that uses the key words correctly and gives a reason for each point.

Howardites · teacher copy: keep it separate from the pupil worksheets