Comets as a research area encompass the multidisciplinary study of small icy bodies in the Solar System, focusing on their composition, physical properties, dynamics, and role in planetary system formation and evolution. This field integrates observational astronomy, spectroscopy, celestial mechanics, laboratory astrophysics, and space mission data to characterize volatile and refractory components, dust-gas interactions, nucleus structure, coma and tail formation, and outgassing processes. Research addresses orbital evolution, non-gravitational forces, and reservoirs such as the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud, with implications for understanding primordial Solar System materials, delivery of volatiles and organics to terrestrial planets, and comparative planetology.
How do you find a comet that could pose a threat to Earth but hasn't passed our planet in the last 200 years or more? You look for its footprint.
Astronomy
Dec 13, 2024
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99
The first dark comet—a celestial object that looks like an asteroid but moves through space like a comet—was reported less than two years ago. Soon after, another six were found. In a new paper, researchers announce the discovery ...
Planetary Sciences
Dec 9, 2024
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199
Researchers have found that water on Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko has a similar molecular signature to the water in Earth's oceans. Contradicting some recent results, this finding reopens the case that Jupiter-family comets ...
Astrobiology
Dec 3, 2024
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164
A mysterious object discovered in the main asteroid belt in 2021 was determined to be a main-belt comet by Planetary Science Institute Senior Scientist Henry Hsieh, Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution for Science and ...
Astronomy
Dec 3, 2024
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142
On 12 November 2014, after a 10-year journey through the solar system and over 500 million kilometers from home, Rosetta's lander Philae made space exploration history by touching down on a comet for the first time. On the ...
Planetary Sciences
Nov 12, 2024
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96
Comets have long been seen as omens and portents, and it's easy to understand why. They first appear as faint smudges of light in the sky, sometimes fading soon after and sometimes becoming brighter than the planets, with ...
Astronomy
Oct 31, 2024
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65
A recently discovered comet that some stargazers had hoped to see during Halloween week has disintegrated before the day of ghosts and ghouls.
Planetary Sciences
Oct 29, 2024
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48
Since the first X-ray image of a comet was reported using an X-ray telescope in 1996, the investigation of charge exchange in collisions between highly charged ions and atoms or molecules has emerged as a hot research topic.
Quantum Physics
Oct 29, 2024
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88
The Orionids—one of two annual meteor showers from Halley's comet—peak early Monday. A bright waning moon may make them difficult to spot.
Space Exploration
Oct 17, 2024
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32
October's supermoon is the closest of the year and it's teaming up with a comet for a rare stargazing two-for-one.
Planetary Sciences
Oct 16, 2024
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57
