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In nearly all cases, comets are named after their discoverers, but in a few cases such as 2P/Encke and 27P/Crommelin they were named for a person who calculated their orbits (the orbit computers). The long-term orbits of comets can be difficult to calculate due to errors in the known trajectory that can accumulate from perturbations from the ...
Comets whose aphelia are near a major planet's orbit are called its "family". [81] Such families are thought to arise from the planet capturing formerly long-period comets into shorter orbits. [82] At the shorter orbital period extreme, Encke's Comet has an orbit that does not reach the orbit of Jupiter, and is known as an Encke-type comet.
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 ...
Some comets, like Halley’s Comet, have shorter orbits that bring it near the Sun every 75 years. Other comets like Hale-Bopp, which memorably lit up the evening skies in 1997, will not be back ...
This is a list of comets (bodies that travel in elliptical, parabolic, and sometimes hyperbolic orbits and display a tail behind them) listed by type. Comets are sorted into four categories: periodic comets (e.g. Halley's Comet), non-periodic comets (e.g. Comet Hale–Bopp), comets with no meaningful orbit (the Great Comet of 1106), and lost comets (), displayed as either P (periodic), C (non ...
Due to having the most eccentric orbits of any Solar System body, a comet's orbit typically intersects one or more of the planets in the Solar System. As a result, the orbit of a comet is frequently perturbed significantly, even over the course of a single pass through the inner Solar System. Due to the changing orbit, it's necessary to provide ...
What is the 'Devil Comet'? Comet 12/P Pons-Brooks orbits the sun roughly every 71 years. This orbital length classifies it as a Halley-type comet, a comet with an orbital period of 20 to 200 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. For comets with an orbital period of over 1000 years (semi-major axis greater than ~100 AU), see the List of near-parabolic comets.