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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.
Comet orbits had been determined quite precisely, yet comets were at times recovered "off-schedule," by as much as days. Early comets could be explained by a "resisting medium"—such as "the aether", or the cumulative action of meteoroids against the front of the comet(s). [citation needed] But comets could return both early and late. Whipple ...
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 ...
As space objects go, comets and meteors are not very big. The largest asteroid, Ceres, is only about 600 miles wide. ... NASA’s Lucy mission launched in 2021 with the goal of flying by eight ...
All comets are frozen remnants of dust, rock and ice from the solar system's origin, according to NASA. As they approach the sun, they heat up and release gas and dust, appearing like a glowing orb.
NASA said Tuesday researchers had observed a record-breaking comet speeding toward the middle of the universe. The space agency said it’s the biggest comet nucleus ever recorded with an ...
Comet Hartley 2, designated as 103P/Hartley by the Minor Planet Center, [6] is a small periodic comet with an orbital period of 6.48 years. [1] It was discovered by Malcolm Hartley in 1986 at the Schmidt Telescope Unit, Siding Spring Observatory , Australia. [ 5 ]
Periodic comets (also known as short-period comets) are comets with orbital periods of less than 200 years or that have been observed during more than a single perihelion passage [1] (e.g. 153P/Ikeya–Zhang). "Periodic comet" is also sometimes used to mean any comet with a periodic orbit, even if greater than 200 years.