Matthew Pinkey, age 11, of Sand Spring, Oklahoma, for his question:

Are meteors related to comets?

The Solar System is a celestial family. All its members sprang from the same cosmic origin and we can say that they are all related    but the relationship between comets and meteors goes beyond this simple family bond.

The members of our celestial family are grouped in different classes mainly on the basis of their sizes and their motions within the Solar System. The nine planets are large, massive bodies that circle the sun in yearly orbits. Their moons are smaller bodies held in captive orbits around their planets and swept along with their planets in larger orbits around the sun.

Comets are smaller and much less massive than the planets and most of the moons. They, too, revolve around the sun, often in long, narrow orbits. Meteors are parts of comets which have broken away, solid stony masses which trail along in the orbit of their parent comet on its endless journeys around the sun. Sometimes the path of an orbiting meteor passes close to the earth, and the meteor may be drawn into the earth's atmos¬phere and come plunging to the ground in a brilliant blaze of light.