What is the difference between an asteroid, a comet and a minor planet?
A minor planet is a term used for any small body in the Solar System which is not itself the moon of a planet: both asteroids and comets are minor planets. An asteroid is composed primarily of rock and iron, whereas comets contain a large proportion of ice. It is this difference in composition which accounts for the different appearances of these two objects. When comets get near the Sun, they get hot enough for the ice to evaporate and produce large amounts of gas, which become a bright tail and make comets conspicuous. Asteroids have no such volatile elements, and thus remain very much fainter. Some asteroids may be comets which have, over time, lost all their ice. • What are the asteroid’s orbital elements? The following elements are for the epoch JD 2450500.5 (Feb 21 1997) and relative to the equinox J2000.0. Semimajor axis = 0.99778030 astronomical units, eccentricity 0.51478431, inclination i=19.812285 degrees, longitude of the ascending node = 126.373212 degrees, argument of per
