Origins

Essentially all the small bodies are thought to be remnant material from the planet-building process that took place during the formation of the solar system from the solar nebula. (See solar system: Formation of the solar nebula.) Near the hot nascent Sun, closer than Jupiter’s present orbit, only the less-volatile high-temperature-freezing-point substances such as metals and silicates could condense from the nebula. Beginning as tiny grains, that material gradually accreted under mutual gravitational influence to become large rocky bodies up to hundreds of kilometres in diameter. Most of those large objects, called planetesimals, ultimately combined to form the dense rocky planets of the inner solar system (Mercury through Mars). In the outer solar system, near Jupiter’s present orbit and beyond, temperatures were cool enough to allow abundant volatile substances such as water and carbon dioxide to condense to their ices. Although rocky planetesimals likewise accreted there, the significant additional mass contributed by the ices allowed the growth of the low-density gas-rich outer planets (Jupiter through Neptune).

Nevertheless, in the inner and the outer solar system, there remained rocky bodies and predominantly icy bodies, respectively, that were never incorporated into planets or captured as planetary satellites. It is now believed that many of these bodies were subsequently mixed together and relocated from their formation locations by the migration of the giant planets. Today, in the inner solar system, these remnants are represented chiefly by the asteroids and their fragments; in the outer solar system, by the objects in and derived from the Kuiper belt and the Oort cloud. Comets originate, and most are still located, in the Kuiper belt and the Oort cloud. Except for the very largest Kuiper belt objects (diameters greater than about 100 km [60 miles]), comets in the Kuiper belt and beyond are unobservable because of their great distances from Earth. It is not until they enter the realm of the planets that they develop comas and tails.

Differences between comets and asteroids

There are several characteristics based on physical differences, location, and orbital properties that traditionally have distinguished comets from asteroids. An object is classified as a comet when it displays “cometary activity”—i.e., a coma or tail (or any evidence of gas or dust coming from it). Objects in the Oort cloud, although they may not all have formed in their present location, are considered to be comet nuclei. Because of their great distance from the Sun, they do not display cometary activity. Nevertheless, they are believed to be made of the same volatile material as the observed comets and so have the potential to become active. Finally, any object on a nonreturning (parabolic or hyperbolic) orbit is generally considered to be a comet.

Although such distinctions apply most of the time, they are not always sufficient to classify an individual object as an asteroid or a comet. For example, an object found to be receding from the Sun on a nonreturning orbit and displaying no cometary activity could be a comet, or it could be a planet-crossing asteroid being ejected from the solar system after a close encounter with a planet, most likely Jupiter. Again, objects on some planet-crossing orbits may have originated in either the Kuiper belt or the asteroid belt. Unless such an object reveals itself by displaying cometary activity, there is usually no way to determine its origin and thus to classify it unequivocally. The object may have formed as an icy body but lost its volatile materials during a series of passes into the inner solar system. Its burned-out remnant of rocky material would presently have more physical characteristics in common with asteroids than with other comets.

One small body group with both cometary and asteroidal characteristics is that of the main-belt comets (or active asteroids). The first group member, 133P/(7968) Elst-Pizarro, was discovered in 1996, when that “asteroid’s” cometlike activity was first noted. Main-belt comets have orbits in the main asteroid belt but, like comets, have comae and tails.