asteroid

(noun)

A naturally occurring solid object, which is smaller than a planet and is not a comet, that orbits a star.

Related Terms

  • planet
  • geothermal
  • entropy

Examples of asteroid in the following topics:

  • Satellites

    • Natural satellites, often called moons (see ), are celestial bodies that orbit a larger body call a primary (often planet, though there are binary asteroids, too).
    • There are 76 objects in the asteroid belt with satellites (five with two satellites each), four Jupiter trojans, 39 near-Earth objects, and 14 Mars-crossers.
  • Heat Death

    • Stars are hotter than planets, for example, which are warmer than icy asteroids, which are warmer still than the vacuum of the space between them.
  • Kepler's First Law

    • Minor bodies such as comets an asteroids (discovered after Kepler's time) can have very large eccentricities.
  • Dynamics of UCM

    • The Moon's orbit about Earth, the orbits of planets, asteroids, meteors, and comets about the Sun are other examples of gravitational orbits.
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