THE SOLAR SYSTEM:
Comets, Asteroids, and Meteoroids

COMETS ASTEROIDS METEOROIDS LESSON

Directions:

Print the Comets, Asteroids, and Meteoroids reading comprehension passage and questions (see below).

Students should read the passage silently, then answer the questions.  Teachers may also use the text as part of a classroom lesson plan.

Lesson Excerpt

     We usually think of our solar system as the sun and the eight planets that orbit it.  Comets, asteroids, and meteoroids also belong to our solar system.

     A comet is an icy body that orbits the sun. The center of a comet is called the nucleus.  It is a small, solid ball surrounded by gases, water, and dust.  These things are frozen into a kind of dirty snowball.  The nucleus can be a few kilometers or a few miles in diameter. The cloud of dust and gases around the nucleus is called the coma.  Together, the nucleus and the coma form the comet's head.  The third part of the comet is called the tail.  Comets only have tails when they are close to the sun

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