the difference between comets, meteors, shooting stars
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A comet is a small, icy rock that orbits the Sun in a highly eccentric elliptical orbit, i.e. it gets very close to the Sun and then very far away. When it gets close to the Sun it gets warmer and releases gases, leaving a trail behind it.
A meteor and a shooting star are the same thing – a streak of bright light generated from a heated objects as it crashes to Earth. They are not the actual body – the body itself is a comet, asteroid or meteoroid, and once it crashes it is known as a meteorite.
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