Hubble and SOFIA Take a Close Look at Comet 46P
As the brilliant comet 46P/Wirtanen streaked across the sky, NASA telescopes caught it on camera from multiple angles. NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope photographed comet 46P/Wirtanen…
Comet
View Passing Comet 46P/Wirtanen This Sunday
On Sunday, December 16, the comet known as 46P/Wirtanen will make one of the 10 closest comet flybys of Earth in 70 years, and you…
Asteroids, Comets and Other Small Objects Provide Clues of Mysterious Distant Past
The entire history of human existence is a tiny blip in our solar system’s 4.5-billion-year history. No one was around to see planets forming and…
NASA’s Planet-Hunting Satellite Catches a Comet in Motion
Before NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) started science operations on July 25, 2018, the planet hunter sent back a stunning sequence of serendipitous images…
Scientists Detail the Origin of Molecular Oxygen in Comet 67P
Scientists have found that molecular oxygen around comet 67P is not produced on its surface, as some suggested, but may be from its body. The…
A Star Disturbed Solar System Comets and Asteroids 70,000 Years Ago
About 70,000 years ago, when the human species was already on Earth, a small reddish star approached our solar system and gravitationally disturbed comets and…
Astronomers Reveal How Catastrophic Collisions Form Two Lobe Comets
Comets made up of two lobes, such as 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, visited by the Rosetta spacecraft, are produced when the debris resulting from a destructive collision between…
Swift Mission Views an Unprecedented Change in the Rotation of Comet 41P
Observations by NASA’s Swift spacecraft, now renamed the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory after the mission’s late principal investigator, have captured an unprecedented change in the…
Scientists Analyze the Chemical Elements That Make Up Comet 67P
The dust that comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko emits into space consists to about one half of organic molecules. The dust also belongs to the most pristine and…
NASA’s Infrared Telescope Facility Views Quirky Comet 45P
NASA’s Infrared Telescope Facility, or IRTF, gave comet 45P a thorough astronomical checkup as it zipped past Earth early in 2017. The results help fill…
ESA and NASA Satellites Spot the Return of the Comet 96P
The European Space Agency and NASA mission SOHO — short for Solar and Heliospheric Observatory — got a visit from an old friend this week…
Rosetta Spacecraft Records Eruption of Jets of Dust on Comet 67P
Five instruments from the Rosetta Spacecraft reveal the eruption of jets of dust on 67P/Chruyumov-Gerasimenko. The impressive jets of dust that comets emit into space…
A Small Object (A/2017 U1) from Deep Space Enters Our Solar System
Astronomers reveal that a small, recently discovered asteroid — or perhaps a comet — has entered our solar system from somewhere else in our galaxy….
Kepler Detects Transiting Comets Outside Our Solar System
Researchers, working closely with amateur astronomers, have spotted the dusty tails of six exocomets — comets outside our solar system — orbiting a faint star…
Micrometeoroid Showers Make Big Impact on Mercury’s Thin Atmosphere
New research sheds light on how certain types of comets influence the lopsided bombardment of Mercury’s surface by tiny dust particles called micrometeoroids. Mercury, our…
Hubble Telescope Views the Farthest Active Inbound Comet Yet Seen, Comet K2
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope observed the farthest-discovered active inbound comet, Comet K2. Coming from the distant Oort Cloud, K2 is visiting our inner solar system…
ESA’s Gaia Satellite Reveals the Rate of Stellar Encounters with the Sun
The movements of more than 300,000 stars surveyed by ESA’s Gaia satellite reveal that rare close encounters with our Sun might disturb the cloud of…
NEOWISE Reveals Size Distributions of Comet Populations
Using NEOWISE data from the four-band and three-band cryogenic phases of the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer mission, astronomers reveal that large, distant comets are more…