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Vocab Words
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Dwarf Planet | A celestial body that orbits the sun, is round because of its own gravity, but has not cleared its orbital path. |
| Kuiper Belt | A region of the solar system that is just beyond the orbit of Neptune and that contains small bodies made mostly of ice. |
| Kuiper Belt Object | One of the hundreds or thousands of minor planet-sized objects that orbit the sun in a flat belt beyond Neptune's orbit. |
| Comet | A small body that gives off gas and dust as it passes close to the sun; a typical comet moves in an elliptical orbit around the sun and is made of dust and frozen gases. |
| Oort Cloud | A spherical region that surrounds the solar system, that extends from the Kuiper Belt to almost halfway to the nearest star, and that contains billions of comets. |
| Asteroid | A small, rocky object that orbits the sun; most asteroids are located in a band between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. |
| Meteoroid | A relatively small, rocky body that travels through space. |
| Meteor | A bright streak of light that results when a meteoroid burns up in Earth's atmosphere. |
| Meteorite | A meteoroid that reaches Earth's surface without burning up completely. |