comet

He will be remembered as the actor who blazed like a comet at the height of the 1960s, surrounded by the decade's most beautiful women.

Meteor showers occur when Earth passes through trails of dust and debris left behind by comets or asteroids.

Finding something in a comet, he said, “doesn’t mean that it can’t be a biosignature in a planetary atmosphere, because those are two very different environments.”

The annual shower hits its peak on warm, laid-back August nights as the Earth crosses paths with the dust cloud left by comet Swift-Tuttle on its every-133-years swing past our planet.

Meteorites are the remains of rock left after an asteroid or comet passes through Earth's atmosphere.