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A comet is an icy, small Solar System ... Aristotle (384–322 BC) was the first known scientist to use various theories and observational facts to employ a ...
Comet Kohoutek (formally designated C/1973 E1 and formerly as 1973 XII and 1973f) [c] is a comet that passed close to the Sun towards the end of 1973. Early predictions of the comet's peak brightness suggested that it had the potential to become one of the brightest comets of the 20th century, capturing the attention of the wider public and the press and earning the comet the moniker of "Comet ...
The confirmation of the comet's return was the first time anything other than planets had been shown to orbit the Sun. [36] It was also one of the earliest successful tests of Newtonian physics, and a clear demonstration of its explanatory power. [37] The comet was first named in Halley's honour by French astronomer Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille in ...
Comet Hale–Bopp (formally designated C/1995 O1) is a long-period comet that was one of the most widely observed of the 20th century and one of the brightest seen for many decades. [citation needed] Alan Hale and Thomas Bopp discovered Comet Hale–Bopp separately on July 23, 1995, before it became visible to the naked eye.
Periodic comets usually have elongated elliptical orbits, and usually return to the vicinity of the Sun after a number of decades. The official names of non-periodic comets begin with a "C"; the names of periodic comets begin with "P" or a number followed by "P". Comets that have been lost or disappeared have names with a "D". Comets whose ...
Comet Encke / ˈ ɛ ŋ k i /, or Encke's Comet (official designation: 2P/Encke), is a periodic comet that completes an orbit of the Sun once every 3.3 years. (This is the shortest period of a reasonably bright comet; the faint main-belt comet 311P/PanSTARRS has a period of 3.2 years.)
Comet Swift–Tuttle (formally designated 109P/Swift–Tuttle) is a large periodic comet with a 1995 orbital period of 133 years that is in a 1:11 orbital resonance with Jupiter. It fits the classical definition of a Halley-type comet , which has an orbital period between 20 and 200 years. [ 4 ]
Comet Hyakutake (formally designated C/1996 B2) is a comet discovered on 31 January 1996. [1] It was dubbed the Great Comet of 1996; its passage to within 0.1 AU (15 Gm) of the Earth on 25 March was one of the closest cometary approaches of the previous 200 years.