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Traditionally, small bodies orbiting the Sun were classified as comets, asteroids, or meteoroids, with anything smaller than one meter across being called a meteoroid. The term asteroid, never officially defined, [11] can be informally used to mean "an irregularly shaped rocky body orbiting the Sun that does not qualify as a planet or a dwarf ...
Meteors were alternatively viewed as arrows of stellar gods, as their cigar butts, and even as their excrement. The arrows could hit animals or people and were feared when walking at night. Comets were conceived as smoking stars and as bad omens, e.g., announcing the death of a ruler. [9]
Asteroids are thought to have a different origin from comets, having formed inside the orbit of Jupiter rather than in the outer Solar System. [4] [5] However, the discovery of main-belt comets and active centaur minor planets has blurred the distinction between asteroids and comets.
Periodic comets (also known as short-period comets) are comets with orbital periods of less than 200 years or that have been observed during more than a single perihelion passage [1] (e.g. 153P/Ikeya–Zhang). "Periodic comet" is also sometimes used to mean any comet with a periodic orbit, even if greater than 200 years.
The Taurids are an annual meteor shower, associated with the comet Encke.The Taurids are actually two separate showers, with a Southern and a Northern component. The Southern Taurids originated from Comet Encke, while the Northern Taurids originated from the asteroid 2004 TG 10, possibly a large fragment of Encke due to its similar orbital parameters.
Trajectory of 2004 FH in the Earth–Moon system Goldstone radar images of asteroid 2007 PA 8 's Earth flyby in 2012. This is a list of examples where an asteroid or meteoroid travels close to the Earth. Some are regarded as potentially hazardous objects if they are estimated to be large enough to cause regional devastation.
A meteor or shooting star [8] is the visible passage of a meteoroid, comet, or asteroid entering Earth's atmosphere. At a speed typically in excess of 20 km/s (72,000 km/h; 45,000 mph), aerodynamic heating of that object produces a streak of light, both from the glowing object and the trail of glowing particles that it leaves in its wake.
A thick accumulation of dust layers might be a good description of all of the short period comets, as dust layers with thicknesses on the order of meters are thought to have accumulated on the surfaces of short-period comet nuclei. The accumulation of dust layers over time would change the physical character of the short-period comet.