In parabola, the two arms of the curve that are also called “branches.†may become parallel to each other. With the hyperbola, you can be sure that the “branches†will not become parallel. Most people think that a hyperbola is somewhat similar to an ellipse.
Hyperbolas and parabolas are often related to each other. Another difference that you should learn is that parabolas will always have a certain shape no matter what the sizes of the different parabolas are. For the hyperbola, you can expect that the sizes and the shapes will be different. The differences in the distances will also be different for the hyperbola and the parabola.