Solar System Debris Vocabulary
Comet
a relatively small extraterrestrial body consisting of a frozen mass that travels around the sun in a highly elliptical orbit
Oort Cloud
a spherical region of comets that surrounds the solar system
Meteor Shower
a transient shower of meteors when a meteor swarm enters the earth's atmosphere
Meteor
any of the small solid extraterrestrial bodies that hits the earth's atmosphere
Coma
the luminous cloud of particles surrounding the frozen nucleus of a comet
Asteroid Belt
the region of interplanetary space between Mars and Jupiter where most asteroids are found
Meteoroid
A chunk of rock or dust in space
Meteorite
A meteoroid that passes through the atmosphere and hits Earth's surface
Kuiper Belt
A region of the solar system that is just beyond the orbit of Neptune and that contains small bodies made mostly of ice
Asteroid
A small, rocky object that orbits the sun; most asteroids are located in a band between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter
Ion/Dust Tail
Thin stream of ionized gas that is pushed away from the head of a comet by the solar wind