Asteroids, Comets & Meteors - NASA Science

A full disc view of Bennu, whoing its surface littered with giant boulders.

Asteroids, Comets & Meteors

Our solar system's small bodies pack big surprises.

Asteroids

Rocky leftovers from planet formation.

Comets

Cosmic snowballs of gas and dust.

Meteors

Bits of debris that fall through the atmosphere.

Seal shows a guard in a castle turret using a telescope to watch out for asteroids and comets in the sky.

Planetary Defense

Protect Earth from impacts.

Overview

Asteroids, comets, and meteors are chunks of rock, ice, and metal left over from the formation of our solar system about 4.6 billion years ago.

Asteroids and Comets

Latest Count
For the most up to date count of asteroids, and comets in our solar system, please visit NASA/JPL's Solar System Dynamics website.

Explore the 3D world of asteroids, comets, and NEOs. Learn about past and future missions, tracking and predicting orbits, and close approaches to Earth.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Related Stories

Four Asteroids Named After NASA Volunteers

An illustration showing the orbits of four newly named asteroids.

NASA’s Webb Reveals Unusual Jets of Volatile Gas from Icy Centaur 29P

Artist’s concept of Centaur 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 1 as seen from the side against a dark, mostly starless swath of space. The rocky, bilobed nucleus is toward the right and resembles the simplified shape of a peanut. The left side of the centaur is partially illuminated by the Sun, which is off-screen, revealing the nucleus’ light brown surface. Four jets of gas, depicted as translucent cones of white, emanate from various points on the Centaur’s surface and extend beyond the frame: two emanate upward from the top, one jet spews from the bottom and extends downward, and one jet emanates from the left side of the nucleus and extends toward the left. A label in the bottom left corner reads “Artist’s Concept.”

Work Is Under Way on NASA’s Next-Generation Asteroid Hunter

NASA Shares Asteroid Bennu Sample in Exchange with JAXA

Asteroid, Comets and Meteors

14 Images

These three radar images of near-Earth asteroid 2003 SD220 were obtained on Dec. 15-17. This will be the asteroid's closest approach in more than 400 years and the closest until 2070.

This frame from a movie of asteroid 2014 JO25 was generated using radar data collected by NASA 230-foot-wide 70-meter Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, California on April 19, 2017.

This radar image of asteroid 2005 YU55 was obtained NASA Deep Space Network antenna in Goldstone, Calif. on Nov. 7, 2011, when the space rock was at 3.6 lunar distances, which is about 860,000 miles, or 1.38 million kilometers, from Earth.

This image of asteroid 2011 MD was taken by NASA Spitzer Space Telescope in Feb. 2014, over a period of 20 hours.

Two large and one smaller bright, blue-white dots surrounded with a blue cloud.

Two Very Different Asteroids

Radar Model of Asteroid 216 Kleopatra

Comet 2i/borisov as seen by hubble

This collage of radar images of near-Earth asteroid 1999 JD6 was collected by NASA scientists on July 25, 2015. The asteroid is between 660-980 feet 200-300 meters in diameter.

An illustration of asteroid Psyche in space. Large craters can be seen on the gray-colored, potato-shaped asteroid.

Resources

Lucy Mission Resource Package
Activities that can be done at home as well as videos, animations, stories, and articles.
For Kids: Asteroids, Comets & Meteors
Facts and activities for K-4 explorers.
NASA Photojournal: Small Bodies
Shooting stars are actually bits of debris that fall through our atmosphere.

Keep Exploring

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Pluto

This full disc view of Pluto features bright region that looks like a heart on the side of the dwarf planet.

Kuiper Belt

Illustration of spacecraft near a giant space rock far from the Sun.

Oort Cloud

This image shows comet C/2018 Y1 Iwamoto as imaged in multiple exposures of infrared light by NASA's Near-Earth Object Wide-field Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) space telescope.

Skywatching

A man looks through a telescope at twilight.