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Asteroid: a large body in space made of rock and minerals.Meteor: small pieces of rock or minerals that have broken off a larger asteroid.Comet: a large body in space made of rock, ice and frozen gas.When this happens, thousands of little pieces chip off the asteroids. Sometimes asteroids collide or crash into one another. Luckily for the people of Chelyabinsk the meteor exploded in the air and didn’t hit the ground and explode, if it did it would have wiped out the town. A meteor is what happens when a meteoroid a small piece of an asteroid or comet burns up upon entering Earths atmosphere, creating a streak of light in. The massive shock wave damaged thousands of buildings and injured over 1500 people. In 2013 in area of Russia called Chelyabinsk a meteor over 20 m wide exploded in the air.Most meteorites are small, but larger ones have landed on cars or houses, causing damage.Most of them burn up, but if they land on Earth, they are called meteorites. Meteors enter the Earth’s atmosphere every day. The meteors travel through space and occasionally become caught by a planet’s gravitational pull. Sometimes asteroids collide or crash into one another.Scientists estimate that a massive asteroid hit earth about 65 million years ago wiping out the dinosaurs.Ceres is the largest asteroid and is about 950 km wide.Asteroids are found in the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter. Keep reading to find out more all about comets, meteors and asteroids.
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Comets orbit at the very edge of the galaxy, past Pluto.This tail can be seen in the night sky as a bright, quickly-moving light. This melting process causes bits of dust and debris to trail behind the comet. As comets travel close to the Sun, some of the ice melts off and becomes a gas. Fun Facts about Comets, Meteors and Asteroids for Kids Some are only a few feet in size, while others are a mile or more long. Comets, meteors and asteroids are too small to be planets. First, they’re believed to be remnants of the materials that created the Sun and the planets. Comets, meteors and asteroids have several things in common.