A serendipitous flythrough of the tail of a disintegrated comet has offered scientists a unique opportunity to study these remarkable structures, in new research presented today at the National Astronomy Meeting 2021.
Astronomy
Jul 19, 2021
0
277
A newly discovered visitor to the outer edges of our solar system has been shown to be the largest known comet ever, thanks to the rapid response telescopes of Las Cumbres Observatory. The object, which is named Comet C/2014 ...
Space Exploration
Jul 16, 2021
1
2570
Comet 46P/Wirtanen was releasing an unusual amount of alcohol as it made its historic flyby of Earth two and a half years ago. That's one of the findings from the latest published study comet detectives conducted after observing ...
Planetary Sciences
Jun 30, 2021
4
666
A giant comet from the outskirts of our solar system has been discovered in six years of data from the Dark Energy Survey. Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein is estimated to be about 1000 times more massive than a typical comet, ...
Space Exploration
Jun 28, 2021
4
3720
A cluster of comet fragments believed to have hit Earth nearly 13,000 years ago may have shaped the origins of human civilisation, research suggests.
Earth Sciences
Jun 24, 2021
6
5241
Comets that circle the Sun in very elongated orbits spread their debris so thin along their orbit or eject it out of the solar system altogether so that their meteor showers are hard to detect. From a new meteor shower survey ...
Space Exploration
May 20, 2021
0
775
The world's first ground-based observations of the bare nucleus of a comet nearing the end of its active life revealed that the nucleus has a diameter of 800 meters and is covered with large grains of phyllosilicate; on Earth ...
Space Exploration
Apr 6, 2021
3
355
After traveling several billion miles toward the Sun, a wayward young comet-like object orbiting among the giant planets has found a temporary parking place along the way. The object has settled near a family of captured ...
Space Exploration
Feb 25, 2021
0
1766
From aboard the Juno spacecraft, a Southwest Research Institute-led instrument observing auroras serendipitously spotted a bright flash above Jupiter's clouds last spring. The Ultraviolet Spectrograph (UVS) team studied the ...
Planetary Sciences
Feb 22, 2021
1
53
As Chile and Argentina witnessed the total solar eclipse on Dec. 14, 2020, unbeknownst to skywatchers, a little tiny speck was flying past the Sun—a recently discovered comet.
Space Exploration
Dec 18, 2020
1
2858
