We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 July 2010
Captain: 'Tis thought the king is dead; we will not stay.
The bay-trees in our country are all wither'd
And meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven;
The pale-faced moon looks bloody on the earth
And lean-look'd prophets whisper fearful change …
Isn't it strange that of all the many pieces of our Solar System, it is the smallest ones – comets, meteors, and an eclipse of the Moon, that attracted the attention of civilizations right up to Shakespeare's time 400 years ago? While the great worlds orbit the Sun, their motions are predictable and are not a cause for alarm. But a meteor shower did attract notice, along with an increasing interest in the workings of our Solar System. Our solar neighborhood is a big place, with several different types of object in its domain, ranging in size from one star, the Sun, to tiny micrometeoroids that are even smaller than the meteors this book is about. These objects include the Sun, planets, moons, comets, asteroids, meteoroids, and micrometeoroids. It seems a simple division, but recent debates tell us that the boundaries among these types of objects are fuzzy at best. See Figure 4.1.
Categorizing objects in our Solar System
The best known debate concerns the definition of a planet. In 2006 the International Astronomical Union defined a planet in a most controversial way.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
