var domObject = document.getElementById("rowID");
This will return an object which exposes the native javascript API (as defined by the current ECMAScript Specification) and the DOM API (details available at w3.org).
var jqObject = $("#rowID");
This will return an object which exposes the jQuery API. jQuery creates an object with a set of functions available. It also uses an indexed array on that object which holds the set of matched elements to the selector. The selector used matches css selectors, in this case matching the id "rowID", if it were to match a class, '.rowClass', then it will return a set of elements in the array matching that class. These elements can be accessed via index on the jquery object, jqObject[0] being the first, [1] the second (if present) etc.
Extracting the element in this fashion will return the native element. This native element can be referenced in many different ways. For example, it is usually assign to the this
variable.
$("#rowID").each(function(){
var nativeElement = this;//same as domObject
});
or
$("#rowId").click(function(){
var nativeElement = this;//same as domObject
});