Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
As of 2022 there are no mission proposals to C/2014 UN 271, nor are there any upcoming missions that can be retargeted to the comet. The European Space Agency's upcoming Comet Interceptor mission, which will launch in 2029 and make a flyby of a long-period comet within Earth's orbit, will not be able to reach C/2014 UN 271 due to its large ...
A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that warms and begins to release gases when passing close to the Sun, a process called outgassing.This produces an extended, gravitationally unbound atmosphere or coma surrounding the nucleus, and sometimes a tail of gas and dust gas blown out from the coma.
Scientists use maps, images, telescopes on Earth, and orbiting telescopes (such as the Hubble Space Telescope). [7] The maps and images are stored in the NASA Planetary Data System where tools such as the Planetary Image Atlas help to search for certain items such as geological features including mountains, ravines, and craters.
The seven largest natural satellites in the Solar System (those bigger than 2,500 km across) are Jupiter's Galilean moons (Ganymede, Callisto, Io, and Europa), Saturn's moon Titan, Earth's moon, and Neptune's captured natural satellite Triton. Triton, the smallest of these, has more mass than all smaller natural satellites together.
List of hypothetical Solar System objects in astronomy; Historical models of the Solar System; History of astronomy; Timeline of cosmological theories; The number of currently known, or observed, objects of the Solar System are in the hundreds of thousands. Many of them are listed in the following articles: List of Solar System objects; List of ...
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the Solar System: Solar System – gravitationally bound system comprising the Sun and the objects that orbit it, either directly or indirectly. Of those objects that orbit the Sun directly, the largest eight are the planets (including Earth), with the remainder being ...
There are 293 confirmed moons in our cosmic neighborhood. By studying these worlds, astronomers hope to learn about ancient asteroid collisions, space volcanoes, and the origins of life itself.
As the comet warms, parts of it sublimate; [1] this gives a comet a diffuse appearance when viewed through telescopes and distinguishes it from stars. The word coma comes from the Greek κόμη (kómē), which means "hair" and is the origin of the word comet itself. [2] [3] The coma is generally made of ice and comet dust. [1]