Asteroids & Comets
What is the difference between a meteor and a meteorite?
A meteor is a streak of light in the sky (shooting star); a meteorite is the rock that actually lands on Earth.
What event 66 million years ago caused the dinosaurs’ extinction?
The Chicxulub asteroid impact.
What does NEO stand for?
Near-Earth Object.
What is the “point of no return” called?
The event horizon
In Interstellar, what environmental problem on Earth pushes humans to search for a new planet?
A global crop failure and dust storms known as “The Blight.”
What are comets mostly made of?
Ice, dust, and rock (often called “dirty snowballs”).
Where is the Chicxulub crater located?
Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico.
Which U.S. office is in charge of protecting Earth from hazardous asteroids?
NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO).
Name the glowing disk of gas and dust around a black hole.
The accretion disk.
Why did the crew use a wormhole near Saturn instead of regular space travel?
A wormhole provides a shortcut through space-time, allowing them to reach distant galaxies faster.
Where are most asteroids in our solar system found?
In the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
The asteroid that created the Chicxulub crater was roughly the size of what Earth landmark?
Mount Everest.
In 2022, what was the first NASA mission to successfully change the path of an asteroid?
The DART mission (Double Asteroid Redirection Test).
“Why would an astronaut falling into a black hole see time differently compared to someone far away?”
Time slows near intense gravity because of relativity — an outside observer would see the astronaut moving in slow motion.
On Miller’s planet, hours equal years on Earth. What scientific concept explains this time difference?
Time dilation caused by the strong gravity of a nearby black hole (Gargantua).
What was ʻOumuamua, discovered in 2017?
The first known interstellar object detected passing through our solar system.
In 1908, what massive explosion flattened 800 square miles of forest in Siberia?
The Tunguska Event, caused by an asteroid or comet exploding in the atmosphere.
Why can the NEOWISE space telescope detect asteroids that ground telescopes might miss?
It detects heat (infrared light), so it can see dark asteroids that don’t reflect much visible light.
What are two different ways astronomers can study black holes even though they can’t be seen directly?
By observing X-rays from hot gas in accretion disks, or tracking stars orbiting around an invisible object.
What real-life scientist advised the filmmakers so the black hole looked scientifically accurate?
Physicist Kip Thorne.
Explain the difference between an asteroid and a meteoroid.
An asteroid is a large rocky body in space; a meteoroid is a much smaller rock or fragment.
Imagine the Tunguska explosion happened above a major city. What kinds of damage and effects would people experience?
A city would be completely destroyed, millions of deaths, shock waves, fires, and devastation across hundreds of square miles.
Scientists estimate they’ve discovered about what percentage of all giant (1 km or bigger) asteroids near Earth?
About 95%.
What unusual stretching effect would a star or planet experience if it got too close to a black hole’s gravity?
Spaghettification — the object would be stretched into long, thin strands.
The ending shows Cooper entering a “tesseract” inside the black hole. What does this scene represent about dimensions beyond the three we normally experience?
Higher dimensions — where time is treated like a physical dimension, allowing communication across time.