Both Uses

comet
in
Flags of Our Fathers
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—PRIVATE TEX STANTON, 2ND PLATOON, EASY COMPANY IT BEGAN EERILY, IN THE NIGHT: A dark Pacific sky cut by hellish red comets, rising and descending in clusters of three, each descent followed by a distant explosion.†
Chpt 7. *

comets = small icy bodies that orbit the sun
The hellish red comets that had cut the predawn blackness reappeared in the sky, intermixed with streaks of white: tracers; shells from the offshore destroyers (more than ten thousand rounds); phosphorous "star shells" to provide bursts of white light; searchlights to keep Suribachi illuminated; parachute flares that made a Poof!†
Chpt 7.

Definitions:

(1) (comet)
a relatively small extraterrestrial body consisting of a frozen mass that travels around the sun in a highly elliptical orbit
(2) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)