What is the difference between comets, asteroids, and meteors?

Baloo55th

Asteroids are planets that are too small to be called planets. The name means starlike, which is silly. They seem mostly to be rocky, and rather irregular in shape. The majority of them live in between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter in, wait for it, the Asteroid Belt, and most have fairly regular shaped orbits. Some are a bit off centre, though, and one or two way off centre. Comets tend to travel between way out into space and quite close in to the Sun. Their orbits are not roundish like most of the planets and asteroids. They consist of (probably) a small rocky core with a deepish icy coating. This seems to melt off as the comet comes in from the cold, and this gives the tail, which always points away from the Sun. Meteors and meteorites are small (mostly - some are rather large) bits of rocky stuff that actually meet up with us, and come off worst. Shooting stars are meteors or meteorites coming through the Earth's atmosphere and getting rather hot as they do. If they burn up completely up there, they are called meteors. If they land, they are meteorites. They actually know where some of the meteorites come from. You can't with meteors - nothing left! They have found some that came from Mars. When a big one hits, it causes melting of the surface and as the surface is then liquid, you get splash. If the splash is big enough, you can get bits going fast enough to go into orbit. There aren't any big ones heading for us at the moment, but look at the size of some of the craters on the Moon, and craters on the Earth like that one in Arizona. http://www.nmm.ac.uk/server.php?show=conMediaFile.3719 Feb 20 06, 12:49 PM

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