Asteroid or Meteor: What’s the Difference?

Space rocks and meteors are the two sorts of room rocks. In any case, the distinction between the two relies upon the fact that they are so near Earth’s surface.

Asteroid

Asteroid is a little rough body circling the Sun.

Most space rocks in our close planetary system are found in the fundamental space rock belt, a locale among Mars and Jupiter. Be that as it may, they can likewise hang out in different areas around the close planetary system. For instance, a few space rocks circle the Sun in a way that takes them close Earth.

Representation of the area of the space rock belt among Mars and Jupiter.

Most space rocks in our close planetary system can be found in the space rock belt, among Mars and Jupiter.

Meteoroids

Some of the time one space rock can crush into another. This can make little bits of the space rock sever. Those pieces are called meteoroids.

Delineation of a huge space rock and a little meteoroid that has severed of it.

Meteors

In the event that a meteoroid approaches enough to Earth and enters Earth’s climate, it vaporizes and transforms into a meteor: a dash of light in the sky.

As a result of their appearance, these dashes of light are now and then called “falling stars.” But researchers realize that meteors are not stars by any means—they are only bits of shake!

A photo of meteors streaking through the sky, taken amid the Perseid meteor shower.

Since meteors leave dashes of light in the sky, they are at times mistaken for comets. In any case, these two things are altogether different.

Comets

Comets circle the Sun, similar to space rocks. In any case, comets are made of ice and residue—not shake.

As a comet’s circle takes it toward the Sun, the ice and residue start to vaporize. That vaporized ice and residue become the comet’s tail. You can see a comet notwithstanding when it is exceptionally a long way from Earth. In any case, when you see a meteor, it’s in our environment.

Shooting stars

At times meteoroid rocks don’t vaporize totally in the air. Indeed, now and then they endure their trek through Earth’s environment and land as rocks on the Earth’s surface. Those stones are called shooting stars.

A photo of a man strolling towards a shooting star in Sudan’s Nubian Desert.

A researcher examines a shooting star that arrived in Sudan’s Nubian Desert in 2008. Picture credit: NASA

NASA’s Johnson Space Center has a gathering of shooting stars that have been gathered from a wide range of areas on Earth. The accumulation goes about as a shooting star library for researchers. By contemplating diverse kinds of shooting stars, researchers can get familiar with space rocks, planets and different pieces of our nearby planetary group.

Since space rocks framed close toward the start of our nearby planetary group almost 4.6 billion years prior, shooting stars can give researchers data about what the nearby planetary group resembled route in those days!