Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The following list is of comets with very long orbital periods, defined as between 200 and 1000 years.These comets come from the Kuiper belt and scattered disk, beyond the orbit of Pluto, with possible origins in the Oort cloud for many.
The region now called the Kuiper belt was hypothesized in various forms for decades. It was only in 1992 that the first direct evidence for its existence was found. The number and variety of prior speculations on the nature of the Kuiper belt have led to continued uncertainty as to who deserves credit for first proposing it. [23]: 106
Short-period comets originate in the Kuiper belt or its associated scattered disc, which lie beyond the orbit of Neptune. Long-period comets are thought to originate in the Oort cloud, a spherical cloud of icy bodies extending from outside the Kuiper belt to halfway to the nearest star. [2]
The orbits within the Kuiper belt are relatively stable, and so very few comets are thought to originate there. The scattered disc, however, is dynamically active, and is far more likely to be the place of origin for comets. [11] Comets pass from the scattered disc into the realm of the outer planets, becoming what are known as centaurs. [43]
67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko (abbreviated as 67P or 67P/C–G) is a Jupiter-family comet. [10] It is originally from the Kuiper belt [11] and has an orbital period of 6.45 years as of 2012, [1] a rotation period of approximately 12.4 hours, [9] and a maximum velocity of 135,000 km/h (38 km/s; 84,000 mph). [12]
The 2023 ‘green comet’ is now visible from Earth for the first time in 50,000 years. Anthony Cuthbertson. January 24, 2023 at 11:01 PM.
Little is known of what people thought about comets before Aristotle, who observed his eponymous comet, and most of what is known comes secondhand.From cuneiform astronomical tablets, and works by Aristotle, Diodorus Siculus, Seneca, and one attributed to Plutarch but now thought to be Aetius, it is observed that ancient philosophers divided themselves into two main camps.
The Nishimura comet now bears his name. It’s unusual for an amateur to discover a comet these days, given all the professional sky surveys by powerful ground telescopes, Chodas said, adding ...