Notable comets, asteroids, and near-Earth objects, and the difference between comets, asteroids, and meteoroids. Front: the object or term. Back: a one to two sentence explanation.
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- Comet
- A small icy body in space that develops a glowing tail of gas and dust when passing near the sun.
- Asteroid
- A small rocky body orbiting the sun, typically found in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
- Meteoroid
- A small particle of dust or rock traveling through space, smaller than an asteroid.
- Meteor
- A meteoroid that enters Earth's atmosphere and burns up, creating a bright streak of light.
- Meteorite
- A meteor that survives passage through Earth's atmosphere and lands on the surface.
- Halley's Comet
- A periodic comet that returns to Earth's vicinity every 75 to 76 years, last visible in 1986.
- Hale-Bopp
- A bright comet visible to the naked eye during 1997, with an exceptionally long observation period of 18 months.
- Hyakutake Comet
- A comet that passed close to Earth in 1996 and briefly became brighter than Polaris, the North Star.
- Shoemaker-Levy 9
- A comet that broke into fragments and collided with Jupiter in 1994, creating visible impact scars in the atmosphere.
- NEOWISE
- A comet discovered in March 2020 that became visible to the naked eye in the Northern Hemisphere during July and August 2020.
- Comet Wild 2
- A comet whose nucleus was visited and photographed by the NASA Stardust spacecraft in January 2006.
- Comet Lovejoy
- A comet discovered in 2011 that survived passing through the sun's corona and remained visible to the naked eye.
- Ceres
- The largest object in the asteroid belt, classified as a dwarf planet, orbiting between Mars and Jupiter.
- Vesta
- The second-largest asteroid in the belt, sometimes visible to the naked eye and extensively studied by the Dawn spacecraft.
- Pallas
- The third-largest asteroid in the belt, notable for its large axial tilt and highly irregular shape.