Asteroids and Comets

Explore NASA’s Asteroids, Comets, and Meteors site to learn more about these fascinating features of our solar system. You’ll find in-depth information and photos about featured asteroids, comets, and meteors.

Find out about NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) and its mission to predict close approaches of NEOs to Earth.

At National Geographic, refresh your knowledge of the difference between asteroids and comets and the difference between meteoroids, meteors, and meteorites.

Follow the most current scientific observations, discoveries, and research on comets and asteroids.

Check out How Asteroids Work, How Comets Work, and What If An Asteroid Hit Earth?

Space.com explains the origin, composition, movement, and exploration of asteroids and comets.

The Dawn spacecraft’s mission was to explore and orbit the two largest bodies in the asteroid belt: Vesta and Ceres. See its amazing discoveries.

For primary grade classrooms, Ready Jet Go! has a collection of fun video lessons about small solar system bodies, including A Comet’s Tail, Asteroids, Meteors and Meteorites, Homemade Comet, and What Is A Meteor Shower?

Dwarf Planets and Small Solar System Bodies, part of the NASA Planetary Sciences Collection, contains resources for grades 3 and up. Take a look at A Visit to Asteroid Vesta.

In Why Study Comets? and Why Study Asteroids? students learn that comets and asteroids can teach us about our solar system’s formation and early history.

Can You Make a Comet? is a hands-on lesson that includes support materials for students and teachers.

For middle-school classrooms, Comet Encounter is an 8-part introduction to the origin, discovery, and potential impact of comets.

Small Bodies Orbiting the Sun is a series of four NASA eClips that demonstrate how scientists are currently exploring asteroids and comets.

Planetary Defense, from the Lunar and Planetary Institute, includes six hands-on activities to engage students in learning about comets and asteroids. Students will enjoy playing the meteorite board game Space Rocks! in teams or as a class.

Comets and Meteors is a complete lesson plan for middle school science, with worksheets and a comet experiment.

Asteroids, Comets, and Meteors, a lesson for 5^th-6^th grades, emphasizes describing, comparing, and contrasting different objects in space.

Asteroids, from TeachEngineering, is designed to get students thinking about what would happen if an asteroid hit the earth and how engineers help predict and prevent collisions.

These complete lesson plans on asteroids and comets are designed for 5^th - 6^th grades and contain optional extension activities for further study.

Classroom activities where students create models of space objects include NASA’s Mashed Potato Asteroids, Make Your Own Awesome Asteroid, Make a Comet on a Stick, and Dry Ice Comet.

Help students understand the difference between asteroids and comets with this organizing table and quiz.

NASA’s StarChild site has pages on asteroids, comets, and meteoroids for Level 1 (up to 4^th grade) and Level 2 (up to 7^th grade.) In this accompanying worksheet, students compare the attributes of each type of space object.

The American Museum of Natural History has lessons, videos, and posters on asteroids and meteorites designed for middle-school classrooms.

STEM Education Network offers a comprehensive compilation of educational materials about comets, asteroids, and meteors, including multi-media resources, slide shows, links to NASA missions, and classroom activities.

NASA’s visualization tool Eyes on Asteroids allows your students to track asteroids and comets that are currently approaching Earth’s orbit.  Astromaterials 3D is a virtual library featuring NASA’s space rock collection.

Did you know that every year, June 30 is Asteroid Day? Find K-12 resources from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to help students celebrate asteroids and comets.

SpacePlace, NASA’s student-friendly website for kids, works well for individual research or whole-class use. Take a look at these pages: 

• What is a Comet?
• What is an Asteroid?
• What is a Meteor Shower?
• Thirsty? Have a Comet!
• Asteroid or Meteor – What’s the Difference?

NASA’s SpacePlace provides four fun brochures on asteroids and comets that can be downloaded for your students.

These reading passages about comets and asteroids include comprehension quizzes and an option for listening to the information read aloud.

More student-friendly sites designed for kids:

• National Geographic Kids: Comets and Asteroids
• DK Find Out: Comets, Asteroids, Meteors, and Meteorites
• Kiddle: Comet Facts for Kids, Asteroid Facts for Kids, and Meteor Facts for Kids
• Britannica: Comets for Kids (gr. 2-5) and Comets for Students (gr. 6-8)
• ESA Kids: Comets, Meteors, and Asteroids
• Nine Planets: Comet Facts for Kids and Asteroid Belt Facts