NASA. Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) are comets and asteroids that have been nudged by the gravitational attraction of nearby planets into orbits that allow them to enter the Earth's neighborhood.
When I began research for this week's topic, my first quest was learning the difference between an asteroid and a comet. Here's what I discovered. Comets (dirty snowballs) are primarily composed of ice and dust. As they near the sun, the heat melts the co
Asteroids that are on a collision course with Earth are called meteoroids.
"Quick quiz: How many planets orbit our Sun? If you said nine, you're shy by several thousand.
In the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars, there are twenty-six asteroids larger than 124 miles in diameter, traveling along with hundreds of thousands of smaller asteroids.
"WARNING ! AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY! DEPARTMENT OF EXTRATERRESTRIAL PHENOMENA.
Tom Gehrels works the graveyard shift at an observatory in southern Arizona, searching for what he estimates are "1,700 potential Earth-killers in outer space.
