SOLAR SYSTEM

Detailed explanation-1: -The name asteroids, meaning “star-like", derives from the fact that, compared with comets, they are star-like in appearance because since they are rocky they do not emit the gases and dust that give comets their fuzzy appearance. Asteroids on a collision course with Earth are called meteoroids.

Detailed explanation-2: -This prompted the astronomer Sir William Herschel to propose the term asteroid, coined in Greek as , or asteroeidēs, meaning ‘star-like, star-shaped’, and derived from the Ancient Greek astēr ‘star, planet’.