Solar System Debris
meteor
a sudden streak of light in the night sky caused by friction between air molecules in Earth's atmosphere and an incoming piece of interplanetary matter
meteorite
any piece of interplanetary debris that survives its fiery passage through our atmosphere and finds its way to the ground
earth-crossing asteroids
asteroids with eccentricities greater than .4, their paths intersect earths orbit, leading to possible collisions
oort cloud
region which may contain trillions of comets, far beyond orbit of pluto
asteroids
relatively small, predominately rocky objects that revolve around the sun
comets
same thing as a meteoroid, brightens and develops a tail as it nears sun on highly elliptical orbit
ion tail
tail which is straight and made up of glowing, linear streamers
Kuiper belt objects
the collection of faint objects which are relatively nearby the Kuiper belt
micrometeoroids
the small meteoroids which make up meteoroid swarms
tail
when a comet nears the sun this forms and gets smaller and dimmer the farther out the comet is
meteoroid swarm
when a comet passes near the sun and some cometary fragments are dislodged from the main body and travel in a tightly knit group of dust or pebble sized objects
meteor shower
when earths orbit intersects the orbit of a cluster of meteoroids the remains of broken up comets ex Trojan perseids Leonids tauroids
coma
when part of a comet becomes gaseous and expands into space and forms a diffuse "halo" of dust and evaporated gas around the nucleus
asteroid belt
where the vast majority of asteroids are found, midway between orbits of Mars and Jupiter
dwarf planets
a body which 1) orbits the sun 2) is massive enough that it's own Gravity has caused it's shape to be approximately spherical but has not 3) "cleared the neighborhood" around its orbit of other bodies
dust tail
broad, diffuse, and gently curved tail
Trojan asteroids
class of asteroids which orbits at the distance of Jupiter and have 1:1 orbital resonance with Jupiter
Kuiper belt
in the orbit of Neptune, composed of asteroids a little like those in the inner solar system. most comets here move in roughly circular orbits but never venturing into the orbits of the land planets
meteoroids
interplanetary matter (aka asteroid or comet)
hydrogen envelope
invisible, usually distorted by the solar wind, stretches across millions of km of space