Our solar system is full of floating space debris: Comets, meteors, asteroids and more. What are the differences that make up these various space rocks?
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00:00 [MUSIC]
00:05 Our solar system is full of floating space debris.
00:09 It comes in different forms and different names.
00:12 Asteroids are large chunks of rock that are left over since the beginning of our solar system.
00:17 Most of these rocks orbit in an area between Mars and Jupiter called the asteroid belt.
00:23 Comets are believed to originate from the Kuiper belt and as far as the Oort cloud.
00:29 They contain ice, methane or ammonia.
00:32 These compounds develop a fuzzy shell called a coma.
00:36 As they travel closer to the sun, tails begin to form.
00:39 When asteroids begin entering Earth's atmosphere, they become meteors.
00:43 Meteors burn up in the atmosphere before reaching Earth's surface.
00:47 You may know them as shooting stars.
00:50 If a meteor survives its descent and lands, it becomes a meteorite.
00:55 For 40 for AccuWeather, I'm Jeff Cornish.
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