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An asteroid is a minor planet —an object that is neither a true planet nor an identified comet — that orbits within the inner Solar System. They are rocky, metallic, or icy bodies with no atmosphere, classified as C-type (carbonaceous), M-type (metallic), or S-type (silicaceous).
A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that warms and begins to release gases when passing close to the Sun, a process called outgassing. This produces an extended, gravitationally unbound atmosphere or coma surrounding the nucleus, and sometimes a tail of gas and dust gas blown out from the coma. These phenomena are due to the effects of ...
An impact event is a collision between astronomical objects causing measurable effects. [1] Impact events have been found to regularly occur in planetary systems, though the most frequent involve asteroids, comets or meteoroids and have minimal effect.
A small Solar System body can be an asteroid or a comet, thus an NEO is either a near-Earth asteroid (NEA) or a near-Earth comet (NEC). The organisations cataloging NEOs further limit their definition of NEO to objects with an orbital period under 200 years, a restriction that applies to comets in particular, [ 2 ] [ 26 ] but this approach is ...
A meteoroid shown entering the atmosphere, causing a visible meteor and hitting the Earth's surface, becoming a meteorite. A meteoroid (/ ˈmiːtiərɔɪd / MEE-tee-ə-royd) [ 1 ] is a small rocky or metallic body in outer space. Meteoroids are distinguished as objects significantly smaller than asteroids, ranging in size from grains to objects ...
Active asteroid. Active asteroids are small Solar System bodies that have asteroid -like orbits but show comet -like visual characteristics. [1] That is, they show a coma, tail, or other visual evidence of mass-loss (like a comet), but their orbits remain within Jupiter 's orbit (like an asteroid). [2][3] These bodies were originally designated ...
The Comet research group (CRG), dedicated to investigating the YDIH, was established in 2016. [12] The credibility and motivations of individual CRG researchers have been questioned by critics of the impact hypothesis, including their specific claims for evidence in support of the YDIH and/or the effects of meteor air bursts or impact events on ancient settlements, people, and environments. [12]
The Oort cloud (/ ɔːrt, ʊərt /), [1] sometimes called the Öpik–Oort cloud, [2] is theorized to be a vast cloud of icy planetesimals surrounding the Sun at distances ranging from 2,000 to 200,000 AU (0.03 to 3.2 light-years). [3][note 1][4] The concept of such a cloud was proposed in 1950 by the Dutch astronomer Jan Oort, in whose honor ...