Small Body Objects

Comets Chunks of ice and rocks that originate from the outer solar system and ort cloud. Structure: – Nucleus – solid core or rock and ice – Coma – very thin layer of water and dust atmosphere – Tail – caused by solar winds blowing the coma material away from the sun at all times. Comets may sometimes travel into their tails when going away from the Sun. – Jets – geyser like eruptions from uneven heating causing spinning and possible breakage of the comet.

Asteroids Small, rocky, atmosphereless objects. Can very in size from a pebble to 100s of km in diameter. Most are located in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter More are located outside Neptune’s orbit in the Kuiper Asteroid Belt.

Meteoroids Small, rocky bodies that travel through space. Most are smaller than the size of a pebble, but bigger than a grain of dust.

Meteor Streak of light seen when a meteoroid enters Earth’s atmosphere. Caused by the heating of particles from friction against the atmosphere. We call these shooting stars

Meteorite Piece of space rock that does not burn up entirely on atmospheric entry. Meteorites can be found on Earth’s surface.