Meteors and comets are only 1 word apart, so what is the difference between them?

Although there is only one word difference between the names of meteors and comets, they are not very close to each other, on the contrary, they are very different. Like a meteor, it's just tiny particles of dust or small solid chunks in outer space.

But comets are differentIt can be counted as a celestial body, and although comets are also made up of some relatively tiny dust particles, they are still larger than meteors. We all know that meteors can emit light, thoughIt is true that the luminescence time of meteors is very short, sometimes only one second, but comets have a huge advantage in luminescence time, the brightness of comets can last at least a few days, and sometimes they can even maintain a year of brightness if they are long. It's really incredible.

And when they shine, the shape they show is different, and when the meteor appears in the sky, it is just a bright spot, and it quickly passes through the skyThe shape of the comet is very distinctive, it has a tail, and this tail will exist for a long time, like a broom. andAnd the meaning of pop and comet in folk is also diametrically opposed.

It's like a comet, because it's too much like a broomThat's why people call comets "broom stars", and people use "broom stars" as a symbol of bad luck, so few people will like comets. But the meaning of meteors is different, people think that fleeting meteors are very precious, it will bring good luck to people, so there are many people who are very fond of meteors.

Although there is only one word difference, the difference is actually quite large. A meteor is a fragment, whereas a comet is a planet.

Meteors are relatively tiny particles of dust or relatively small solid masses in outer space, while a comet can be counted as a celestial body.

Although they are only one word apart, there is a difference, because there are many meteors and there are fewer comets.

Comets are small celestial bodies composed of ice and a small amount of rock, and it can be said that they are very short-lived, and meteors are traces of light produced by dust particles and solids from interplanetary space breaking into the Earth's atmosphere and burning against the atmosphere.

The difference between them should be the difference in quantity, one has a lot of quantity, and the other seems to have only one.

I think there must be some essential gaps, after all, there are things that are also different.

It can be said that it is very short-lived, and meteors are dust particles and solid intrusions in interplanetary space.

CometEvery time you visit the Sun, you lose some of its volatile substances, and eventually it will become another rocky object in the solar system. Therefore, comets can be said to be very short-lived for the universe. And what about the meteor??

And how much do you know about it? Follow me on to see the difference between a comet and a meteor.

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Comets are small bodies made of ice and a small amount of rock, with an average density of only 10-1,000 kilograms of cubic meters, and astronomers have figuratively called comets "dirty snowballs". In general, comets are at the edge of the solar system, and even when observed, they resemble extremely faint stars and do not have a detailed structure. However, when it gradually approaches the Sun, due to the increase of the Sun's thermal radiation, solar wind and solar light pressure, especially when it enters the orbital region of Mars, the surface material volatilizes to form a comet tail, showing its unique structure.

The comet loses some of its volatile matter every time it visits the Sun, and eventually it will become another rocky object in the solar system. Therefore, for the universe, comets can be said to be very short-lived. Many scientists believe that some asteroids are extinct comet nuclei that have lost all of their volatile material.

Most of the more than 1,800 comets discovered so far have only one side to us, and after a hasty circumnavigation of the Sun, they disappear along a parabola or hyperbola. Only comets that orbit in closed orbits can come and come back, and this is a periodic comet. Scientists set 200 years as the boundary between short-period comets and long-period comets.

What is a meteor?

Meteors are traces of light produced by the friction and combustion of dust particles and solid blocks (meteoroids) in interplanetary space into the Earth's atmosphere. If they are not burned up in the atmosphere, they are called "meteorites" or "meteorites" when they fall to the ground. Meteoroids originally orbited the sun, and when they passed near the earth, they were affected by the gravitational pull of the earth and changed their orbit, thus entering the earth's atmosphere.

There are several types of meteors: single meteors, fire meteors, and meteor showers. There is no law on the time and direction of the appearance of a single meteor, which is also called an occasional meteor.

Fire meteors are also occasional meteors, but they are very bright when they appear, like a fire dragon and may be accompanied by ** sounds, and some are even visible during the day. Many meteors radiate outward from a certain point in the starry sky (radiant), which is called a meteor shower. Meteorites are the remnants of the largest meteoroids in the solar system that have not completely burned up after breaking into the Earth's atmosphere, and they bring us a wealth of information about the formation and evolution of the celestial bodies in the solar system, and they are welcome guests.

The density of ordinary meteoroids is very low, about 1 20 of the density of water. Every day, billions and tens of billions of meteoroids enter the Earth's atmosphere, with a total mass of up to 20 tons.

1. Different compositions: Comets are mainly composed of ice and dust, while meteors are composed of dust particles and solid blocks in interplanetary space.

2. The principle of luminescence is different: the gas molecules of the comet absorb the sun's ultraviolet light and obtain energy, excite from the lower energy order to the higher energy order, and then release energy when jumping back to the ground state, emitting radiation of the same frequency as the absorption, thus emitting light, while the meteor is burning with the atmosphere violently when entering the earth's atmosphere to emit light.

3. Comets have a certain trajectory in the universe, while meteors do not.

Comet: A comet is a unique cloud-like appearance of a celestial body that moves around the sun and its brightness and shape change with the solar distance. Comets are divided into three parts: the nucleus, the coma, and the tail.

The comet nucleus is made up of icy material, which sublimates as the comet approaches the star, forming a hazy comet and a tail of thin material around the ice core. The comet has a very small mass and density, and when it is far away from the sun, it is just a "dirty snowball" of frozen ice cubes such as water, ammonia, methane, etc., and many solid dust particles. When approaching the Sun, the comet is broken down into a head and tail by solar radiation, which resemble a broom.

Meteor: A luminous phenomenon produced by meteoroids passing through the Earth's atmosphere at a speed of tens of kilometers per second.

Comets: They are a group of small celestial bodies in the solar system. Consists of frozen matter and dust. It is visible when it is close to the Sun. The sun's heat vaporizes the comet's material, forming a hazy comet and a tail of thin material around the ice core.

Let's start with the difference between the two.

Meteors are only 80-100 kilometers away from the Earth's surface, while comets can be tens or even hundreds of millions of kilometers away from the Earth.

Meteors rarely appear for more than a second, and as a result, I have never succeeded in making a wish after seeing 2,000 meteors, which can remain bright for at least a few days, or even a year.

Let's talk about the difference between the two parents.

The parent body of a meteor is a meteoroid, and the parent body of a medium-bright meteor is no more than the size of a mung bean. The composition of the material is also arbitrary, stony, iron, ice can be its main components.

The parent body of the comet is much larger than the meteoroid, and the nucleus of Halley's comet is more than ten kilometers in diameter and is composed of volatile substances such as water, dry ice, and ammonia. The orbital eccentricity is very large.

The differences between a comet and a meteor are:

1. The concept is different: a comet is a celestial body that enters the solar system and moves around the sun with changes in brightness and shape. Meteors refer to the traces of light produced by meteoroids orbiting in interstellar space (usually including space materials such as cosmic dust particles and solid blocks) that are attracted to the earth due to the perturbation of the earth's gravity when approaching the earth, thus entering the earth's atmosphere and rubbing with the atmosphere.

2. The appearance is different: the comet is decomposed into a comet head and tail under the action of solar radiation, which is like a broom. There are many types of meteors, and different types of meteors have different shapes, unlike comets that resemble brooms.

3. The composition is different: comet material is mainly composed of water, ammonia, methane, cyanide, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, etc., while the comet nucleus is composed of water, carbon dioxide (dry ice), ammonia and dust particles condensed into ice, which is a "dirty snowball". The most abundant elements in meteors are iron, nickel, sulfur, silicon, cobalt, calcium, oxygen, etc., all of which are native to Earth.

Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, the combination of the nine great planets. Then the planet is also called the big planet, in fact, the name is because the asteroid was discovered later, and our Chinese name has the big planet. So let's look at asteroids now, except for the big planets in the solar system, they can be collectively called small bodies.

So how do we distinguish between these small celestial bodies? First of all, asteroids, I put asteroids and comets together, asteroids move in elliptical orbits, and this ellipse is not very flattened. Comets, on the other hand, usually follow a relatively flat elliptical orbit, or even a parabola, or a hyperbola, that is, this flat elliptical orbit continues to flatten, and in the end it is equal to a parabola.

And then the parabola is a hyperbola, so this is the difference between an asteroid and a comet.

The second difference is that an asteroid is not very volatile in its material, it is just a rock. When a comet is close to the Sun, it has gaseous substances that evaporate, which is a big difference between them. Then the so-called small celestial body refers to small mass, not small volume.

So this is the asteroid photographed by the space probe, you see there is a scale here, this scale is 20 kilometers, so you can see how small this asteroid is. We can't talk about the diameter of these asteroid scales, because it is not a sphere, and its scale does not exceed tens of kilometers, or no more than 100 kilometers. So in addition to these two types of small objects, there is also a smaller class of small objects, which are called meteoroids.

We usually talk about meteors when meteoroids break into the Earth's atmosphere, and meteoroids can travel at speeds of up to 10 kilometers to 70 kilometers per second. This speed is very fast, ten kilometers per second is already ten times the speed of the bullet out of the muzzle. The velocity of the bullet out of the muzzle is about one kilometer per second, and if it is seventy kilometers per second, it is even faster, then this high-speed breakthrough into the earth, it rubs against the earth's atmosphere, and then it heats up, burns, and emits light.

This trail of light is called a meteor, so meteors and meteoroids are two completely different concepts, meteoroids are a piece of thing, and meteors are a phenomenon.

Comets are made of icy material, which is sublimated by the solar wind and forms a comet tail in the direction of the sun.

Meteors are dust and tiny solids that are quickly gravitationally pulled into the Earth's atmosphere and will rub and burn to produce light trails.

Meteors may fall to Earth, and comets have been flying in the sky.