Incoming comet ISON appears intact to Hubble

(Phys.org) —A new image of the sunward plunging Comet ISON suggests that the comet is intact despite some predictions that the fragile icy nucleus might disintegrate as the Sun warms it. The comet will pass closest to the ...

Near-Earth asteroid is really a comet

Some things are not always what they seem—even in space. For 30 years, scientists believed a large near-Earth object was an asteroid. Now, an international team including Joshua Emery, assistant professor of earth and planetary ...

Rosetta-comet will wake up early

(Phys.org) —On its way towards the Sun comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko, next year's destination of ESA's spacecraft Rosetta, will start emitting gas and dust earlier than previously expected. The comet's activity should be ...

Astronomers detect dust feature in comet ISON's inner coma

In April, when the Hubble Space Telescope looked out towards Jupiter's orbit and observed what has been billed as the "Comet of the Century" – Comet C/2012 S1 ISON – the space telescope photographed a unique feature in ...

Comet Lemmon, Now in STEREO

An icy interloper was in the sights of a NASA spacecraft this past weekend. Comet 2012 F6 Lemmon passed through the field of view of NASA's HI2A camera as seen from its solar observing STEREO Ahead spacecraft. As seen in ...

Hubble brings faraway comet into view

(Phys.org) —The NASA Hubble Space Telescope has given astronomers their clearest view yet of Comet ISON, a newly-discovered sun grazer comet that may light up the sky later this year, or come so close to the Sun that it ...

Orionids, planets, constellations brighten October skies

The 2012 Orionid meteor shower peaks on the night of Oct. 20-21, and that night's almost-new moon favors a good show. The moon's absence from the pre-dawn sky during the Orionids' peak also means that bright moonlight won't ...

Evaporating exoplanet stirs up dust

Dutch astronomers have found clear evidence that a faraway exoplanet is falling apart. New analysis of data from NASA's Kepler satellite shows that this exoplanet, which orbits its host star every 16 hours, has a massive ...

Herschel spots comet massacre around nearby star

(Phys.org) -- ESA’s Herschel Space Observatory has studied the dusty belt around the nearby star Fomalhaut. The dust appears to be coming from collisions that destroy up to thousands of icy comets every day.

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