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The 96P sungrazer family is a small group of sungrazing comets, originating from the comet 96P/Machholz. It is only observed by LASCO corongraphs aboard SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) probe. It contains three subgroups: Marsden, Kracht and Kracht II.
In September 1995, this comet began to disintegrate and to release fragments and large amounts of debris and dust along its orbit. [107] Other processes leading to splitting of comets are tidal stresses and spin-up disruption of the nucleus. Cometary splitting is a rather common phenomenon at a rate of ~1 per 100 years per comet.
The appearance of a comet is called an apparition. Extinct comets that have passed close to the Sun many times have lost nearly all of their volatile ices and dust and may come to resemble small asteroids. [3] Asteroids are thought to have a different origin from comets, having formed inside the orbit of Jupiter rather than in the outer Solar ...
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]
The vaporized ices later resolidified and assembled into comets. So the comets in this model would have a different composition than those comets that were made directly from interstellar ice. The 3) primordial rubble pile model for comet formation says that comets agglomerate in the region where Jupiter was forming.
This comet was also found to be made from a cold space cloud, which is why it is made of dust and ice loosely compacted. [61] To investigate the nucleus of the comet, the Rosetta spacecraft passed radio waves through the comet. [61] This experiment showed that the head of the comet was very porous. [61]
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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 ...