From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishasteroidas‧te‧roid /ˈæstərɔɪd/ noun [countable] HAone of the many small planets that move around the Sun, especially between Mars and Jupiter
Examples from the Corpus
asteroid• Astronomers had accidentally caught a comet in the act of turning into an asteroid.• Comets and asteroids are subjects for Chapter 14.• Two large asteroids have passed alarmingly close to Earth in the past few years.• For example, Vesta, the fourth-largest asteroid, reflects light in a unique way: some 50 meteorites match it closely.• Extraction of helium-3 from the surfaces of asteroids is not likely to compare with that from the Moon.• We do it now on a small scale to bring the rocks into Earth orbit from the asteroid belt.• Finally, the total exposed surface area of the asteroids is less than the surface area of the Moon.• These asteroids with Earth-crossing orbits and orbital periods greater than one Earth year constitute the Apollo family.Origin asteroid (1800-1900) Greek asteroeides “like a star”, from aster “star” 