Comets in Space

Comets have fascinated mankind since the dawn of time. Probably the most famous one in modern times is Halley's Comet, which comes back to our skies every 75-76 years. Other recent notable comets include Comet Hyakutake in 1996, Comet Hale-Bopp in 1997, Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 whose fragments hit Jupiter in 1994, and Comet McNaught in 2007 (brightly visible in the southern hemisphere).

So what is a comet? In space, comets are small chunks of mostly ice and frozen gases. When a comet gets too close to the sun, it sublimates, creating a long, fuzzy tail. Our solar system is full of them - several thousand are known with more found all the time. Some pass close to the sun every few years, while others only every few hundred thousand years, and a few only pass by once and then leave the solar system entirely.

In the articles below, learn more about comets in general and specific comets, and the study of comets in astronomy both historically and today, with current missions like NASA's Stardust and ESA's Rosetta.

_{(Comet Hale-Bopp picture by Philipp Salzgeber, used under CC-BY-SA-2.0-AT license)}