Do you know the difference between a Comet and an Asteroid?

The main difference between asteroids and comets is their composition, what they are made of. Asteroids are made up of metals and rocky material, while comets are made up of ice, dust and rocky material. ...
Asteroids formed much closer to the Sun, where it was too warm for ices to remain solid.

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hunkalove · 61-69, M

My father had asteroids. Sometimes he couldn't even sit on the toilet.

ElwoodBlues · M

True! Also, comets tend to have highly elliptical orbits that bring them from the far outer parts solar system in among the inner planets and back out again. By measuring orbital periods etc, we've determined two different sources for comets - the Kuiper belt and the Oort cloud.

hunkalove · 61-69, M

@ElwoodBlues I thought they came from Uranus?

Northwest · M

Commonly, the plural of ice is ice, but it seems as if CalTech's public information likes to used the countable form of ice, and its plural is ices.

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