asteroid
Use Asteroid in a sentence
Ads
Industrial X-Ray Tubes www.4nsi.com/xraytubes X-Ray Tubes: Micro Focus, Nano Focus, Fan Beam, Cone Beam
My Beloved Brontosaurus us.macmillan.com/ Old Bones, New Science, & Dinosaurs Pick up or download a copy today!
təˌrɔɪd noun
1.
Also called minor planet. Astronomy. any of the thousands of small bodies of from 480 miles (775 km) to less than one mile (1.6 km) in diameter that revolve about the sun in orbits lying mostly between those of Mars and Jupiter.
2.
Zoology. an asteroidean; a starfish.
adjective
3.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
Cite This Source
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
Cite This Source
|
Link To asteroid
Collins
World English Dictionary
asteroid (ˈæstəˌrɔɪd) ![[Click for IPA pronunciation guide]](http://static.sfdict.com/dictstatic/g/d/dictionary_questionbutton_default.gif) | |
| —n | |
| 1. | minor planet, Also called: planetoid any of numerous small celestial bodies that move around the sun mainly between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Their diameters range from 930 kilometres (Ceres) to less than one kilometre |
| 2. | Also called: asteroidean any echinoderm of the class Asteroidea; a starfish |
| —adj | |
| 3. | of, relating to, or belonging to the class Asteroidea |
| 4. | shaped like a star |
| [C19: from Greek asteroeidēs starlike, from astēr a star] | |
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Cite This Source
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Cite This Source
00:10
Asteroid
is always a great word to know.
So is galaxy. Does it mean:
| a large system of stars held together by mutual gravitation and isolated from similar systems by vast regions of space |
| the magnitude of a star as it would appear to a hypothetical observer at a distance of 10 parsecs or 32.6 light-years |
Etymonline
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
Cite This Source
Cite This Source
American Heritage
Science Dictionary
| asteroid (ās'tə-roid') Pronunciation Key
Any of numerous small, often irregularly shaped rocky bodies that orbit the Sun primarily in the asteroid belt, a region between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Asteroids are intermediate in size between planets and meteoroids; the largest asteroid in the asteroid belt is Ceres, approximately 1,000 km (620 mi) in diameter, while the lower limit is variously given in the tens or hundreds of meters. While more than 1,800 asteroids have been cataloged, and as many as a million or more smaller ones may exist, their total mass has been estimated to be less than three percent of the Moon's. Asteroids are thought to be left over from the early formation of the solar system, when planetesimals in a protoplanetary disk were scattered after coming under Jupiter's gravitational influence. The continuing collision of planetesimals that remained between Jupiter and Mars caused many of them to fragment, creating the asteroids that exist today. Also called minor planet, planetoid. |
The American Heritage® Science Dictionary
Copyright © 2002. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved.
Cite This Source
Copyright © 2002. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved.
Cite This Source
American Heritage
Cultural Dictionary
asteroid [(as-tuh-royd)]A small planet that revolves around the sun. The largest asteroid is only about six hundred miles in diameter. (See asteroid belt.)
The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Cite This Source
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Cite This Source
Example sentences
It was not an alert about an incoming asteroid, a problem with the space station or a solar storm.
Scientists believe that the impact of an asteroid only a mile wide would be globally catastrophic.
In the last weeks of his life, he was told that an asteroid had been named after him.
Burrowing into an asteroid and using it as a spacecraft solves a lot of problems that a conventional spacecraft has.
Images for asteroid
Nearby Words
Copyright © 2013 Dictionary.com, LLC. All rights reserved.
