Category:Comets, Asteroids, and Moons

Comets, Asteroids, and Moons all have something in common: they are the smaller bodies of material in a star system. They can all be colonized, and are often used for resource mining.

Comets are made up of frozen water, and are generally larger then asteroids, but rarely larger then moons (though there are comets larger then moons, and even larger then planets depending on the original water-content of a system). They have dust and dirt inside them, trapped by the water, and leave tails behind them as they travel around a star. They rarely collide with rocky planets, but are known to collide with gas giants, creating explosions the size of entire rocky planets (for the average sized comet). They are believed to be a source of water on many planets, and may even be the seedships of life (carrying life from system to system frozen inside them). They generally settle at the edge of a star system in the Comet Cloud, which is the generally accepted border of a star system.

Asteroids are large chunks of rock drifting through space. Often forming into asteroid belts, which are failed planets and encompass entire star systems, they are the bane of planetary life. Since there are so many, and since they form in the same region as planets and life, they often spell doom for species and entire biospheres. They can be any size from microscopic flecks of dust to chunks of rock the size of small moons. Their biggest defining trait is that they have no planet they orbit, but rather control their own orbit in an elliptical path or are part of an asteroid belt. Asteroids are among the first things colonized after a species own homeworld and moon, being very high in resources.

Moons are larger bodies of rock then comets and asteroids (usually) and can sometimes be a captured comet or asteroid. They orbit a larger planet, most commonly found around gas giants, and often help stabilize the planet's orbit and tilt. It is believed that a planet with a moon will always be more stable then a planet without one, and is more likely to develop life. Moons are often the first entity colonized or reached by an early space-age civilization, and are generally thought of as a massive stepping stone in the space age.