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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.
This unique spiral galaxy, which is situated 3.2 billion light-years from the Earth, has an extended stream of bright blue knots and diffuse wisps of young stars. [2] It rushes at 3.6 million km/h (1000km/s [2]) through the cluster Abell 2667 and therefore, like a comet, shows a tail, with a length of 600,000 light-years.
In astronomy, stellar classification is the classification of stars based on their spectral characteristics. Electromagnetic radiation from the star is analyzed by splitting it with a prism or diffraction grating into a spectrum exhibiting the rainbow of colors interspersed with spectral lines.
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 ...
Soon after the first orbital elements could be calculated, it was suggested that the comet would become "a bright object, that could be observed with unaided eye."It was found to combine three favorable characteristics that made it an exceptional comet for observation: a short perihelion distance, a short distance from Earth, and high intrinsic brightness. [9]
In an attempt to link the 1843 and 1880 comets to the comet in 1106 and 371 BC, Kreutz measured the fragments of the 1882 comet and determined that it was likely a fragment of the 1106 comet. He then designated that all sungrazing comets with similar orbital characteristics as these few comets would be part of the Kreutz Group .
There’s an endless procession of ‘north stars’, because the Earth’s axis is not fixed in space, writes Nigel Henbest February night sky: Key dates for moons, comets and stars this month ...
A-type star In the Harvard spectral classification system, a class of main-sequence star having spectra dominated by Balmer absorption lines of hydrogen. Stars of spectral class A are typically blue-white or white in color, measure between 1.4 and 2.1 times the mass of the Sun, and have surface temperatures of 7,600–10,000 kelvin.