What is the difference between comets and meteorites?

Answer 1

Comets are celestial bodies that orbit the sun. They are composed of ice and dust.

A meteor is an object (perhaps a comet or a piece of one) that has struck the atmosphere and become superheated so that it leaves a fiery trail. When it has struck the ground, it is a meteorite.

Answer 2

Asteroid: A relatively small, inactive body, composed of rock, carbon or metal, which is orbiting the Sun.

Comet: A relatively small, sometimes active object, which is composed of dirt and ices. Comets are characterized by dust and gas tails when in proximity to the Sun. Far from the Sun it is difficult to distinguish an asteroid from a comet.

Meteoroid: A small particle from an asteroid or comet orbiting the Sun.

Meteor: A meteoroid that is observed as it burns up in the Earth's atmosphere - a shooting star.

Meteorite: A meteoroid that survives its passage through the Earth's atmosphere and impacts the Earth's surface.

http://www.aerospaceguide.net/whatisanasteroid.html

Answer 3

Meteoroids (I assume you mean that, as a meteorite is only called such after having landed on the surface of the Earth, or other planet) are rocky material, often high in Iron and other metals. Comets, are objects from the Kepler belt or Oort cloud that are made of ice (often methane ice, not nessicarily water ice).

There are two kinds of meteorities:

1. The first kind is just rocky space debris that are pulled into the Earth's atmosphere and land on the planet or are burned up before impact. This debris is leftover from the origin of the solar system or previous asteroidal impacts and is simply just floating around

2. The second kind are the kind of meteorites that are part of the tail of the comet. These meterorites are part of the yearly meteor showers we have almost on a monthly basis here on Earth. See, as a comet approaches the sun, ice particles begin to blow off the comet due to the solar wind. These particles then get caught in the gravitational pull of the earth and rain down on us. Two of the most famous showers are the Perseids and the Geminids, each associated with a comet as it passes by the Earth.

Current theory on a comet is it is a ball of ice with a rocky core. They are much, much larger than meteorites and maintain an orbit either of the two of the debris clouds in our solar system: the Kepler Belt (which is between Earth and Mars) and the Oort Cloud (which is beyond the orbit of Pluto). Meteorities come from the tail of a comet.

Answer 4

Comets are icy bodies made up of dust, rock, and frozen gases that orbit the Sun, while meteorites are rocky or metallic fragments that have fallen to Earth from space. Comets have tails when they approach the Sun due to sublimation of their icy components, while meteorites are remnants of asteroids or comets that survive the journey through Earth's atmosphere and land on the surface.

Answer 5

a comet is bigger and is in space a meteor is a space rock inside earths atmosphere

Answer 6

A comet it's much much bigger. After a comet fells appart in pieces,a piece it's a meteorite.