Dean Malenciki age 13. of Helper. Utah

What is an asteroid?

The name means starlike. But an asteroid can only reflect the light of a star. It has no light to give off of its own. Like a planet. it is a cold body of matter moving around the sky.

It is also like a planet in other ways. It moves in its own orbit around the sun. It does not make circles around a planet like a moon or satellite.

Some 2000 asteroids have been named or numbered. Except on very rare occasions they can only be observed through a telescope. Most of them travel between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. They are very small. some being no bigger than stones and chunks of rock. The largest. named Cores. is 480 miles in diameter.

Asteroids are really little planets and they are often called planetoids. Once in a while. its orbit brings an asteroid very close to the earth. In 1938. an asteroid named Hermes came within 485.000 miles of the earth. And Hermes can come even closer.