Our solar system’s small bodies – asteroids, comets, and meteors – pack big surprises. These chunks of rock, ice, and metal are leftovers from the formation of our solar system 4.6 billion years ago.

Until the time of English astronomer Edmond Halley (1656-1742), comets were believed to make only one pass through the solar system. But in 1705, Halley used Isaac Newton's theories of gravitation …

Our solar system consists of our star, the Sun, and everything bound to it by gravity – the planets Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune; dwarf planets such as Pluto; …

In 1950, astronomer Jan Oort proposed that certain comets come from a vast, extremely distant spherical shell of icy bodies surrounding the solar system. This giant swarm of objects, now named …

Oct 21, 2025 · Asteroids, Comets & Meteors About Asteroids, Comets & Meteors BY TYPE Meteors & Meteorites Asteroids Comets

Researchers have found that some near-Earth asteroids are actually burned-out comets, and most of them would have started out in the Kuiper Belt. Many comets crash into the Sun or the planets.

Besides orbiting the Sun in less than 20 years (as opposed to 200 million years for an Oort member), the comets are unique because their orbits lie near the plane of the Earth's orbit around the Sun. In …

We have been privileged to have recently witnessed two bright comets in consecutive years: Comet Hyakutake in 1996 and Comet Hale-Bopp in 1997. As an added bonus, the Comet Shoemaker-Levy …

Oct 21, 2025 · BY DESTINATION Earth (1) Mars (2) Jupiter (95) Saturn (83) Uranus (27) Neptune (14) Pluto (5) Asteroids, Comets & Meteors About Asteroids, Comets & Meteors BY TYPE Meteors & …

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