Asteroids are generally larger chunks of rock that come from the asteroid belt located between the

orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Sometimes their orbits get perturbed or altered and some asteroids end up
coming closer to the Sun, and therefore closer to Earth.

Comets are much like asteroids, but might have a more ice, methane, ammonia, and other
compounds that develop a fuzzy, cloud-like shell called a coma – as well as a tail — when it gets
closer to the Sun. Comets are thought to originate from two different sources: Long-period comets
(those which take more than 200 years to complete an orbit around the Sun) originate from the Oort
Cloud. Short-period comets (those which take less than 200 years to complete an orbit around the
Sun) originate from the Kuiper Belt.

Space debris smaller than an asteroid are called meteoroids. A meteoroid is a piece of interplanetary
matter that is smaller than a kilometer and frequently only millimeters in size. Most meteoroids that
enter the Earth’s atmosphere are so small that they vaporize completely and never reach the planet’s
surface. And when they do enter Earth’s atmosphere, they gain a different name:

Meteors. Another name commonly used for a meteor is a shooting star. A meteor is the flash of light
that we see in the night sky when a small chunk of interplanetary debris burns up as it passes through
our atmosphere. “Meteor” refers to the flash of light caused by the debris, not the debris itself.

If any part of a meteoroid survives the fall through the atmosphere and lands on Earth, it is called
a meteorite.Although the vast majority of meteorites are very small, their size can range from about a
fraction of a gram (the size of a pebble) to 100 kilograms (220 lbs) or more (the size of a huge, life-
destroying boulder).

Comet: A body of ice, rock and dust that can be several miles in diameter and orbits the sun. Debris from comets is
the source of many meteoroids. ... Asteroid: An object larger than a meteoroid that orbits the sun and is made of
rock or metal. Historically, objects larger than 10 meters across have been calledasteroids.

WHAT IS AN ASTEROID?

Asteroids are rocky objects smaller than planets that are left over from the formation of our solar
system. When the cloud of gas and dust collapsed to form our Sun, much of the remaining material
went into forming the rocky terrestrial and gas giant planets orbiting our star. Smaller dust fragments
that never made their way into planets are left behind as asteroids.
 WHAT IS A COMET?

Comets are also composed of material left over from the formation of our solar system and formed
around the same time as asteroids. However, asteroids formed toward the inner regions of our solar
system where temperatures were hotter and thus only rock or metal could remain solid without
melting. Comets formed at farther distances from the Sun, beyond what we call the frost or snow line
and past the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, where temperatures were low enough for water to freeze.
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WHAT IS A METEOR AND A METEORITE?

A meteor is simply an asteroid that attempts to land on Earth but is vaporized by the Earth’s
atmosphere. The resistance on the rock due to the Earth’s atmosphere causes its temperature to rise.
We sometimes see the glowing hot air created by these burning meteors and dub them “shooting
stars.” Meteor showers occur when the Earth passes by many meteors at once. For example, if chunks
of a comet melt off as it passes close to the Sun, this debris can be left behind to later dazzle us
Earthlings with a meteor shower.

Comets are objects composed mostly of ice and dust that grow tails when they approach the sun. All comets have a
nucleus, which is the hard rock/ice object. When a comet nucleus nears the sun, solar energy begins to heat the ice
and vaporize it. The gas flies off the comet, sometimes violently enough to break the nucleus apart, and throws
dust up with it. The gases form a cloud around the nucleus called the coma. Some of the gas is stripped of
electrons and blown back by the solar wind. This forms a bluish colored ion tail. The dust particles are pushed
away from the comet by solar radiation, forming a dust tail that can be many millions of miles long. The dust tail is
the easiest to see with the unaided eye, but occasionally the ion tail is visible as well. Each time a comet passes
close to the sun, it loses more of its ice. Eventually, after many passes, the comet may no longer have enough
material to form tails. Its surface will be covered by dark dust and it will look more like an asteroid.

Comets come from two places in the Solar System: the Oort Cloud and the Kuiper Belt. The Oort Cloud is a spherical halo
of comets surrounding the Solar System at a distance of around 50,000 Astronomical Units. (One Astronomical Unit
equals the distance from Earth to the Sun.) Comets from the Oort Cloud have long orbital periods and can enter the
solar system from many different directions. The Kuiper Belt is a ring of icy objects beyond the orbit of Neptune (30-100
AU). It lies (more or less) in the plane of the solar system and is a reservoir for the short period comets that we see. The
first Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) were discovered in the early 90s, and they captured the interest of astronomers because
they are probably the oldest, most pristine material in the solar system. Studying KBOs is difficult because they are
distant and very small, but more have been discovered over the last few years as telescope and instrument technologies
have improved. Astronomers now know of a few hundred KBOs, including a large object called Quaoar which is half the
size of Pluto. Quaoar is the largest solar system object discovered since Pluto and Charon, and it reinforces the idea that
there might be other large KBOs that are still undiscovered.

Asteroids are the small rocky objects in the Solar System. The largest asteroid is Ceres, which is 933 kilometers
(580 miles) across. The smallest asteroids that we've observed in detail are only tens of meters in size, but there are
probably a great number of small rocks in space that are currently too small for us to detect. Many asteroids,
including all of the largest asteroids, orbit the sun between Mars and Jupiter in the Asteroid Belt. The Trojan
asteroids share Jupiter's orbital path, but stay 60 degrees ahead or behind Jupiter. Near-Earth Asteroids orbit the
sun in the vicinity of the rocky terrestrial planets and pose the greatest threat to Earth. We think that the total mass
of all the asteroids combined is less than that of the Moon.

The asteroid population is amazingly diverse - each one seems different! Some asteroids such
as Mathilde are very light and are probably "rubble piles" made up of lots of small particles loosely
held together. Other asteroids are metallic (for example Psyche) or pieces of solid rock (Eros, visited
by the NEAR spacecraft, is an example) . Sometimes asteroids have small moons or travel in equal-
sized pairs. Most asteroids have unusual shapes because they have experienced many collisions
and do not have a strong enough gravity to pull themselves back into a sphere. Asteroids are not
visible to the unaided eye, but some can be seen with small telescopes or even binoculars.
Meteors are the short, white trails across the sky that we call "shooting stars." They are caused by small pea-sized
pieces of inter-planetary dust that burn up when they slam into the Earth's atmosphere at high speeds. Meteor
showers happen when Earth passes through the orbital path of a comet that left a lot of dust behind. Earth plows
through the dust, and the particles form meteors as they hit the atmosphere. Occasionally a small rock may fall
through the atmosphere, causing an extremely bright and colorful streak across the sky called a fireball. (These are
often mistaken for comets, but comets do not streak across the sky quickly; they are usually visible for many days.)
Sometimes fireball rocks are not completely vaporized, and they impact Earth's surface. A rock that fell from space
this way is called a meteorite.

Meteors

When we talk about meteors, we mean small objects (usually less than one meter in diameter) that
are captured by the gravitational attraction of the Earth and fall into its atmosphere. The meteor itself
is the luminous tail that is left behind the infalling object (meteoroid), and that is due to the ionization
of the air and by the subsequent recombination ofthe ions. Most of the meteors actually disappear,
since they completely burn up in the atmosphere. Some of the largest objects, however, manage to
arrive to the ground. We call these objects meteorites. To summarize, most of the meteors actually
disappear due to ablation in the Earth's atmosphere.
Asteroids

When we talk about asteroids, we talk about objects whose range of diameters goes from about ten
meters to 975 kilometers (Ceres). Most of these objects are on orbits that are stable for long periods
of time (billions of years). However, some of them may happen to be displaced, for several reasons,
into special orbits that are "in resonance" with the orbit of Jupiter (or Saturn). When we say that an
asteroid is in resonance we mean that its period is a simple fraction of the period of Jupiter. So, for
example, if an asteroid revolves around the Sun with a period which is 2 times that of Jupiter, we say
that it is in a 2:1 resonance with Jupiter. This is important because Jupiter is gravitationally perturbing
the asteroid's orbit. If there is no special relationship between the two orbital periods, the
perturbations pull the asteroid's orbit in different directions, and the net effect is null over a single
orbit. But if there is a special relationship between the planet and asteroid period, the perturbations
may have an average that is not null over an asteroid orbit, and the net effect is that the asteroid orbit
is "distorted".

The orbit of the asteroid, which is an ellipse, may become more elongated, and if the perturbations
are strong enough, the asteroid may go in an orbit that is going to put it in a collision path with the
Sun, or with a planet. Or, in some cases, the asteroid may be completely ejected from the Solar
System. That is how asteroids disappear.
Comets
Most of the brightest comets are objects that are either on very eccentric orbits (elliptical orbits in
which one of the axes is much longer than the other) or on unbound orbits (orbits that are not closed,
they can be parabolic or hyperbolic). When a comet passes close to the Sun, it becomes active and
therefore visible. Its next close passage may be many years afterwards. Or it may pass close to the
Sun once, and then never again (parabolic or hyperbolic comets, on trajectories that escape the Solar
System). In this sense comets "disappear". Another way in which comets may disappear is by
breaking apart when they get too close to the Sun, or by crashing into the Sun. Over one thousand
such objects have been observed; we call them "sungrazers".

Comet - A comet is an icy small Solar System body that, when close enough to the Sun, displays a
visible coma (a thin, fuzzy, temporary atmosphere) and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena are
both due to the effects of solar radiation and the solar wind upon the nucleus of the comet. Comet
nuclei range from a few hundred meters to tens of kilometers across and are composed of loose
collections of ice, dust, and small rocky particles.
Asteroid - Asteroids (from Greek ἀστήρ 'star' and εἶδος 'like, in form') are a class of small Solar
System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger
ones. These terms have historically been applied to any astronomical object orbiting the Sun that did
not show the disk of a planet and was not observed to have the characteristics of an active comet, but
as small objects in the outer Solar System were discovered, their volatile-based surfaces were found
to more closely resemble comets, and so were often distinguished from traditional asteroids
Meteor - A meteoroid is a sand- to boulder-sized particle of debris in the Solar System. The visible
path of a meteoroid that enters Earth's (or another body's) atmosphere is called a meteor, or
colloquially a shooting star or falling star. If a meteoroid reaches the ground and survives impact, then
it is called a meteorite. Many meteors appearing seconds or minutes apart are called a meteor
shower. The root word meteor comes from the Greek meteo¯ros, meaning "high in the air".

Asteroids
An asteroid is a celestial body - composed of rock, metal or a mixture of both - that is orbiting the Sun. Most of
them are in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Even though there are millions of asteroids with sizes
up to more than 500 km (like Pallas and Vesta) they are of no danger to the planet Earth. The biggest body in
the asteroid belt - Ceres - is officially not called an asteroid anymore but a dwarf planet. If you try to envision
the asteroid belt don't get fooled by some science fiction films: travelling around in the asteroid belt with your
spacecraft doesn't require constant steering in order to avoid crashes with asteroids. The scale of the solar
system is so immense that even inside the asteroid belt the average distance between two asteroids is above
one million km - or three times the distance between Earth and the Moon.
 Asteroid Itokawa,
an Apollo asteroid with a length of 500 metres. Credit: JAXA

Some asteroids have very elliptical trajectories, crossing the orbits of the inner planets Mars, Earth or Venus.
The cause of these elliptical trajectories could be collisions within the asteroid belt or the gravitational influence
of the massive planet Jupiter changing the orbits of some asteroids gradually over time (see orbital
resonance). All asteroids with orbits so eccentric that they cross Earth's orbit are called 'Apollo asteroids',
'Amors' approach the Earth but do not cross Earth's orbit. Apollo asteroids are doomed to sooner or later
collide with one of the inner planets, usually within a few million years of their orbit becoming so eccentric. The
largest Apollo asteroid - 1866 Sisyphus - has a diameter of about 9 km, similar to the asteroid that caused
the Chicxulub event, the giant meteorite impact that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. Anyhow, Sisyphus
and none of the other big Apollo asteroids will collide with Earth in the next millennia; which doesn't mean that
smaller bodies can cause local damage. Many of you will remember the Chelyabinsk event which took place
on the 15th of February 2013. Fortunately no people were killed during this event and today you can even buy
a Chelyabinsk meteorite.

Meteoroids and meteors

Generally speaking, meteoroids are all the smaller objects in orbit around the Sun. Most of them originate from
comets that lose gas and dust when they approach the Sun. Other meteoroids are basically small asteroids.
There is no exact diameter that distinguishes an asteroid from a meteoroid. Wikipedia states 10 metres; other
trustworthy sites call anything smaller than 1 km a meteoroid. Anyhow, the vast majority of all meteoroids are
just a few millimetres and less in size. The smallest and by far the most numerous ones have sizes of small
dust particles and are called micrometeoroids; they do not leave any visible trace behind when they enter the
Earth's atmosphere.

Perseid meteor
shower on August 12, 2012. Image taken by David Kingham in Snowy
Range (Wyoming).
The ones about the size of a pebble leave behind a flash of light when they completely vaporise. Most
people call this flash a "shooting star" or a "falling star", but more accurately spoken this is a meteor. A
meteor is the light that you can see when a small meteoroid enters the Earth’s atmosphere. This
normally happens with speeds between 11 and 73 km/s and at altitudes of about 75-120 km. Under a
clear sky an observer can see 5 to 10 meteors per hour, especially after midnight when the Earth has
rotated so far that the observer's part of the sky is positioned in the direction of the Earth's motion
around the Sun. During so called meteor showers the rate of observable meteors per hour can increase
significantly. Meteor showers are caused when the Earth crosses higher than usual concentrations of
particles that are themselves in an eccentric orbit around the Sun. Since the orbit of these particles is
fixed, we encounter this stream every year at the same time - just its density cannot be foreseen. This
sometimes leads to sparse meteor showers and sometimes very intense meteor showers with more
than 1000 meteors per hour, also called meteor outbursts or meteor storms. The meteors we see can
be debris from a comet (> 90% of all meteors we see) or an asteroid. The most famous meteor showers
are the Perseids in mid-August (caused by Comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle) and the Leonids (mid-November).
The meteors during these meteor showers almost all emerge from the same section of the sky; indeed
the meteor showers are named for the constellations from which the meteors appear to originate.
 Leonid meteor, image taken
during the peak of the 2009 Leonid Meteor Shower (17th November). Credit: Wikipedia.org, user: Navicore.

But what causes the light path of the meteor that we can see in the sky? Smaller meteoroids will be heated
by adiabatic compression until the point when they completely disintegrate. However, the light emission we
observe is mainly caused by interactions between evaporated and detached components of the fast moving
meteoroid and air molecules. Both the meteoroid atoms and the air molecules ionize during this encounter.
When the free electrons recombine with the ionized atoms in the tail of the meteoroid they emit the light that
we can observe. The light track can have a length of up to several tens of kilometres and an initial diameter of
a few metres. The colour of the meteor is an indicator of the material of the meteoroid; e.g., a yellow colour is
caused by iron, a blue-green colour by copper and a red colour by silicate material.

A meteor that is larger and brighter than normal is called a fireball; brighter than the brightest planet in
our night sky (Venus). If these fireballs also break apart or explode during their atmospheric flight -
sometimes accompanied by considerable audible sounds - they are called a bolide.
Meteorites
Finally, every asteroid or meteoroid that survives its passage through Earth's atmosphere (and this is the rare
exception) can be advanced to be called a meteorite. Meteorites are made of rock (stony meteorites), metal
(iron meteorites) or a mixture of these two materials (stony-iron meteorites or pallasites). Pallasites form
beautiful olivine crystals that are embedded into a metal matrix. Scientists are eager to study meteorites since
they are the very first material that was formed in our early solar system, almost 4.6 billion years ago. Sun.org
offers genuine meteorites for sale in our meteorite shop.

The three main types of meteorites. Credit: Sun.org - www.sun.org, released under CC-BY-SA 3.0

Comets

Comet Hartley 2 has a length of about 2 km and a short orbital period

of just 6.46 years. CreditNASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD.

Comets are asteroid-like objects which are composed of ice, dust and rocky particles; that's why they are also
called 'dirty snowballs'. The sizes of their nuclei vary between a few hundred metres to tens of kilometres in
diameter; their visible tails can extend to above 150 million km in length. They originate from outside Neptune's
orbit and - like many asteroids and meteoroids - are unmodified remnants of the formation of our solar system
about 4.568 billion years ago. When comets approach the Sun the solar radiation and solar winds cause
particles to sublimate and detach from the comet, forming a tail of particles which often makes them visible in
the night sky even to the naked eye. We say 'sublimate' (a direct phase transition from the solid to the gas
phase) since with zero pressure in space, water will not exist in the liquid phase. Anyhow, below its surface
there can also be reservoirs of liquid water which can vaporise and feed jets of water vapour.

Comets orbit as around the Sun on elliptical orbits until all of their volatile material has evaporated
away. The orbital periods vary between a few years (like comet Encke) and tens of millions of years.
While we can observe Halley's Comet every 75 years we need to wait 106 000 more years until we
see Comet Panstarrs (C/2011 L4), our guest in 2013, the next time.

The Kuiper belt is

the region from where most of the short-period comets derive.
Credit:NASA.

Short-period comets mainly originate from the Kuiper belt, a region in the solar system with many
millions of icy bodies extending from about 30 AU (about the orbit of Neptune) to 50 AU. If some of
these icy bodies get too close to Neptune during their orbit they may be deflected and enter a new,
eccentric orbit which will make them become short-period comets. Long-period comets normally
originate from the Oort cloud, a region between 2000 AU and 50000 AU (or about one light year) away
from the Sun. The Oort cloud consists of trillions of icy objects with diameters above 1 km. With these
huge numbers we can be sure that there will be no shortage of comets visiting the inner part of the
solar system in the future. But what causes these icy objects in the Oort cloud to leave their stable orbit
and approach the inner part of the solar system? Without any "push" they would certainly continue
orbiting in the Oort cloud forever. But gravitational perturbations of nearby passing stars and
the galactic tide can cause these comets to change their trajectory around the Sun and approach the
inner parts of the solar system. The star Gliese 710 will approach within a distance of just 1 light year
from the Sun in about 1.4 million years, scratching the Oort cloud and causing many objects to change
their trajectories around the Sun.
 Comet Lovejoy.
This image is taken from the International Space Station (ISS) on
December 22, 2011. At the bottom of the image you can see Earth's
atmosphere. Credit: Dan Burbank (ISS Expedition 30, NASA)

Comets from the Kuiper belt tend to orbit the Sun within the plane of the solar system because the Kuiper belt
itself is aligned with the plane of the solar system. Comets from the Oort cloud can arrive from all different
directions since the Oort cloud has a spherical shape. A comet's tail is caused by gas and dust particles that
are sublimated and/or vaporised by sunlight and then blown away by the solar wind. The tail always streams
out in the direction opposite to the Sun, but it doesn’t arise until the comet enters the inner parts of the solar
system (somewhere between Mars and Jupiter), so that the sunlight can sufficiently heat up the comet.

NAMING ASTEROIDS

The first asteroids to be discovered were given names from classical mythology, such as Ceres,
Juno, Pallas and Vesta. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) now regulates the naming of
asteroids. Names are no longer restricted to mythological characters, but must be inoffensive and not
connected with recent political or military activity.
However, no asteroid is awarded a name until it has been observed long enough for its orbit to be
determined with a fair degree of precision. This may take several years, but when it is achieved the
body is awarded a “permanent designation” (a number issued in strict numerical sequence) and the
discoverer is invited to suggest a name for approval by a special committee of the International
Astronomical Union.
How are asteroids named?

Naming Asteroids. When minor planets (asteroids) were first discovered, their given names were typically from Greek or
Roman mythology and were often female. When the first Mars-crossing asteroid was discovered, it was given a male
name: 433 Eros, where the 433 denotes it was the 433rd asteroid discovered.

ASTEROIDS AS SOURCE OF METALS

Composition

An asteroid’s composition is mainly determined by how close it is to the Sun. The asteroids that are nearest the Sun
are mostly made of carbon, with smaller amounts of nitrogen, hydrogen and oxygen, while the ones further away are
made up of silicate rock. Silicates are very common on Earth and in the Solar System. They are made up of oxygen and
silicon, the number one and number two most abundant elements in the Earth’s crust. The metallic asteroids are
composed of up to 80% iron and 20% a mixture of nickel, iridium, palladium, platinum, gold, magnesium and other
precious metals such as osmium, ruthenium and rhodium. There are a few that are made up of half silicate and half
metallic.

COMETS
Comets are basically dusty snowballs which orbit the Sun. They are made of ices, such as water, carbon dioxide,
ammonia and methane, mixed with dust. These materials came from the time when the Solar System was
formed.Comets have an icy center (nucleus) surrounded by a large cloud of gas and dust (called the coma).

What a comet is made of?

Comets are basically dusty snowballs which orbit the Sun. They are made of ices, such as water, carbon dioxide,
ammonia and methane, mixed with dust. These materials came from the time when the Solar System was formed.
Comets have an icy center (nucleus) surrounded by a large cloud of gas and dust (called the coma).
The comet, known as Pan STARRS, or C/2011 L4, is expected to be visible from the Philippines, shining particularly
brightly on March 10, according to the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration
(Pagasa).

5 Famous Comets That Can Be Seen From Earth

1 Halley’s Comet. This is perhaps one of the most famous comets in the world. …

2 Hyakutake. Also known as the Great Comet of 1996, Hyakutake is another well-known comet. …

3 Swift-Tuttle. Swift-Tuttle has an orbit period of around 133 years. …

4 Hale-Bopp. …

5 Shoemaker Levy-9.

NAMING COMETS

Naming. In general, comets are named after their discoverer. For example, comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 got its name
because it was the ninth short-periodic comet discovered by Eugene and Carolyn Shoemaker and David Levy.

WHAT ARE METEORITES MADE OF

Meteorites have traditionally been divided into three broad categories:

stony meteorites that are rocks, mainlycomposed of silicate minerals;
ironmeteorites that are largely composedof metallic iron-nickel; and stony-
ironmeteorites that contain large amounts of both metallic and rocky material.
Meteors are no more than dust and ice from the trail of comets. Meteorites can be “stony”, made up of minerals rich
in silicon and oxygen, “iron”, consisting mainly of iron and nickel, or “stony-iron”, a combination of the two.

METEORITES IN THE PHILIPPINES

There were five (5) meteorites that are found and were recorded in the Philippines. The following are: Bondoc – a
Mesosidirite-B4 type of rock that was found on Southern Tagalog in 1956 and weighs about 888.6 kgs, … Pampanga –
an L5 type of rock that was found on Central Luzon in 1859 and weighs about 10.5 kgs, and.

CLASSIFICATION OF ASTEROIDS
Depending on the chemical component, which is the carbon content, metal composition and silicate quantity,
the asteroids are classified into 3 main groups: 1) C-type – These are the most common type of asteroids,
consisting 75% of known asteroid population, also dominating the outer part of asteroid belt