What's the difference between a comet, asteroid, meteor and meteorite?

Question

What's the difference between a comet, asteroid, meteor and meteorite?

Answer 1

A comet is a large body of mass made of rock, ice, and differnet metals that orbist the sun, an asterroid is a large piece of rock or ice that dosen't really have much of an orbit, it just flys around untill it hits something, a meteor is an asteroid that is on a crashing torjectory to a planet, and a meteorite is a very small meteor the size of a peble that burns up in the atmospher apon enerty.

Answer 2

Comet - a relatively small extraterrestrial body consisting of a frozen mass that travels around the sun in a highly elliptical orbit.

Asteroid - Any of numerous small celestial bodies that revolve around the sun, with orbits lying chiefly between Mars and Jupiter and in the Kuiper Belt outside the orbit of Neptune.

Meteor - a meteoroid that has entered Earth's atmosphere and i burning from the atmospheric friction, leaving a bright trail.

Meteorite - A stony or metallic mass of matter that has fallen to the earth's surface from outer space.

The basic difference between meteor, meteoroid, and meteorite is that a meteoroid has not entered Earth's atmosphere, a meteor burns up in the atmosphere, or, if enough of it survives to strike the Earth, it becomes a meteorite.

Answer 3

Comet: A comet is a chunk of rock and ice that usually resides in the oort cloud (in our solar system). Some fall into the gravity of the sun and when they get closer, solar wind and heat blow the ice away and form a tail. They usually don't crash into planets, but comet shoemake-levy plowed into jupiter a while ago.

Asteroid: An asteroid is like a comet but has no ice (well, not alot), they usually reside in the asteroid belt and the kuiper belt.

Meteor: An asteroid or 'space rock' in ...well... space.

(More)

Meteroid: A meteor in the Earth's atmosphere (shooting star)

Meteorite: A meteor once it has hit the ground.

Answer 4

a comet is a ball of ice and rock that revolves around the sun in a oval pattern when it gets close to the sun it melts making the tale because it melts. asteroid is a roke orbitng the sun. meteor is a a astroid falling to earth. meteorite is a meteorite on earth.

Answer 5

A meteorite is a natural object originating in outer space that survives an impact with the Earth's surface. While in space it is called a meteoroid. When it enters the atmosphere, impact pressure causes the body to heat up and emit light, thus forming a fireball, also known as a meteor or shooting star.

Comets are small Solar System bodies that orbit the Sun and, when close enough to the Sun, exhibit a visible coma (or atmosphere) and/or a tail — both primarily from the effects of solar radiation upon the comet's nucleus. Comet nuclei are themselves loose collections of ice, dust and small rocky particles, measuring a few kilometers or tens of kilometers across.

Asteroids, also called minor planets or planetoids, are Solar System bodies smaller than planets but larger than meteoroids (which are commonly defined as being 10 meters across or less).



hope i helped

Answer 6

Asteroids and comets are both classified as near-Earth objects. Asteroids are made of rock or metal and are thought to have been created in the warmer inner solar system. Comets are composed of ice, rock, and organic (carbon-based) compounds, and are believed to have formed in the cold outer solar sytem. Scientists believe both are "...ancient remnants of the earliest years of the formation of our solar system more than four billion years ago."

When asteroids collide, meteroids, smaller rocky bodies, often result. Meteroids are also formed when a comet passes near the sun, and the heat releases dust particles from the comet's icy tail. When a meteroid or asteroid enters the Earth's atmosphere, it ignites, creating a visible streak of light called a meteor. If the object doesn't vaporize completely and crashes into the Earth, it's called a meteorite.

Answer 7

Comet: from a word meaning "hair".  Stars that appear to have hair (the Chinese called them 'broom stars').  We use the word to identify a nucleus of ice and dust: when it approaches the Sun, the gases that are frozen as ice will evaporate and (with the dust that is liberated) will form a 'head' around the nucleus.  The head (coma) is seen as a white circle -- the nucleus itself is usually hidden inside this 'cloud'.

The dust tail is lit by the sun.  It is made of dust and small pebbles.  This tail is always away from the sun (the pebbles and dust grains are slowed down by the solar wind and light) and curves a bit as the grains are on a slightly different orbit than the head -- becasue they have slowed down.

The gas tail is just molecules of gas that are pushed away by solar light (so it too always points away from the sun).  The solar wind is made of fast moving charged particles.  When the charged particles go through the gas tail, they ionize the gas atoms and molecules, which will then glow.  This is exactly the same as what goes on inside a fluorescent tube.

There is often a third tail, smaller, which points towards the sun.  This is gas being vaporized from the portion of the surface that points directly at the sun (the spot receiving the most heat form the sun).

If you really want to be a purist (and annoy others needlessly), you will use the word comet only when the piece of ice actually shows hair (otherwise, it is only a planetoid: any object in orbit around the sun).  That was the original meaning of the word.

However, in astronomy, once an object is identified as a comet, we use the word comet even after the object has gone far enough to become inactive (e.g., Halley's comet is still Halley's comet, even thought it is presently too far to behave like a comet).

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An asteroid is a piece of rock (which can be many kilometres in length).  The word meant that these objects were not large enough to show a disk when they were seen in a telescope.  They looked "star-like" instead of planet-like.  The word was created when the "planets" Ceres, Vesta, Pallas and Juno lost their planet status in the 19th century, because more and more of these "star-like" planetoids were discovered on similar orbits.

The word asteroid is still used for any piece of rock in orbit around the sun, up to the orbit of Jupiter, even if they do show some form in modern telescopes (they are no longer "star-like" but we still call them asteroids).

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Meteor comes from a Greek word meaning high in the air.  Anything that can be seen high in the air is a meteor.  For example, meteorology is the science that studies the formation of clouds, rain, snow..., all objects that are formed high in the air.

In astronomy, the word refers specifically to the streak of light caused by the rapid entry of a rock in our atmosphere.  Most meteors are caused by meteoroids (the pebble or grain of dust itself) although some are caused by small asteroids.

Again, the word should only designate the streak of light, but we also use it for the pebble itself, as in:  "That meteor must have been at least 30 grams!"  Very few people still use the word aerolith ("rock in the air")

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A meteorite is a piece of rock that fell in from space (survived its time as a meteor) and fell to Earth's surface.  As we found out after the names were established:  meteoroids are too small to survive.  Any piece that does make it all the way to the ground came from an asteroid.  But don't worry, they will not change the name to "asteroidite"