Asteroids are large rocks left over from the formation of the solar system that are mostly located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Asteroids have collided with Earth in the past, forming large craters and ejecting dust and rocks that blocked sunlight and caused climate change and species extinction, including dinosaurs. Comets are balls of rock and ice that speed up as they approach the sun due to its increasing gravitational pull. Near-Earth objects like asteroids and comets can be detected early using telescopes to observe their trajectories and potentially alter their course if they are on a collision path with Earth.