mathematics

In this activity you will track a meteor’s path using a technique known as triangulation which can be used to measure the direction to an object from two known locations. From this you can predict where the meteorites might be found.

In this activity students will work out how long it takes light to travel from comet Tempel 1 to Earth and how long after the collision in the Deep Impact mission we will see this event.

Objectives

Students will:

The aim of this activity is to use vectors and Pythagoras’ theorem to work out the speed at which an impactor hits a comet.

Students will track a meteor's path using triangulation and predict where its meteorites might be found. The exercise can be extended to calculate the velocity of a meteor and understand how scientists can determine a meteor's original orbit in space.