Comet
hideA comet is a Small Solar System Body that orbits the Sun. When close enough to the Sun, a comet exhibits a visible coma (fuzzy "atmosphere"), and sometimes a tail, both because of the effects of solar radiation upon the comet's nucleus. Comet nuclei are themselves loose collections of ice, dust and small rocky particles, ranging from a few kilometers to tens of kilometers across.
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News tagged with comet
Rosetta bound for outer Solar System after final Earth swingby (w/ Video)
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Nov 13, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- This morning, mission controllers confirmed that ESA’s comet chaser Rosetta had swung by Earth at 8:45 CET as planned, skimming past our planet to pick up a gravitational boost for an epic ...
How to Make a Planet: Spitzer Spots Clump of Swirling Planetary Material
Sep 23, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers have witnessed odd behavior around a young star. Something, perhaps another star or a planet, appears to be pushing a clump of planet-forming material around. The observations, ...
Jupiter had temporary moon for 12 years
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Sep 14, 2009 |
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Comet 147P/Kushida-Muramatsu was captured as a temporary moon of Jupiter in the mid-20th century and remained trapped in an irregular orbit for about twelve years.
Patagonia site of world's biggest crater field: study
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Sep 08, 2009 |
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Argentina can lay claim to the world's largest crater field, a volcanic area in Patagonia known as the "Devil's Slope," according to a study released Tuesday.
First discovery of life's building block in comet made
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Aug 17, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- NASA scientists have discovered glycine, a fundamental building block of life, in samples of comet Wild 2 returned by NASA's Stardust spacecraft.
Crashing comets not likely the cause of Earth's mass extinctions: new research
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Jul 30, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists have debated how many mass extinction events in Earth's history were triggered by a space body crashing into the planet's surface. Most agree that an asteroid collision 65 million ...
New Images Indicate Object Hits Jupiter
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Jul 21, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists have found evidence that another object has bombarded Jupiter, exactly 15 years after the first impacts by the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9.
Contrary to recent hypothesis, 'chevrons' are not evidence of megatsunamis
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Apr 29, 2009 |
4.7 / 5 (3) |
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A persistent school of thought in recent years has held that so-called "chevrons," large U- or V-shaped formations found in some of the world's coastal areas, are evidence of megatsunamis caused by asteroids ...
Space rock gives Earth a close shave
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Mar 03, 2009 |
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An asteroid of a similar size to a rock that exploded above Siberia in 1908 with the force of a thousand atomic bombs whizzed close past Earth on Monday, astronomers said on Tuesday.
Comet impact theory disproved
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Jan 26, 2009 |
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New data, published today, disproves the recent theory that a large comet exploded over North America 12,900 years ago, causing a shock wave that travelled across North America at hundreds of kilometres per hour and triggering ...
Scientists say comet killed off mammoths, saber-toothed tigers
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Jan 02, 2009 |
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First an explosion as powerful as thousands of megatons of TNT rained meteorites down on North America. Then forest fires broke out across the continent, sending up a thick layer of soot and dust that blocked ...
Superior Super Earths
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Nov 30, 2009 |
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Super Earths are named for their size, but these planets - which range from about 2 to 10 Earth masses - could be superior to the Earth when it comes to sustaining life. They could also provide an answer to ...
First view of Earth as Rosetta approaches home
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Nov 12, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- This spectacular image of our home planet was captured by the OSIRIS instrument on ESA's Rosetta comet chaser earlier today as the spacecraft approached Earth for the third and final swingby. ...
Unsettled Youth: Spitzer Observes a Chaotic Planetary System
Nov 04, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Before our planets found their way to the stable orbits they circle in today, they wiggled and jostled about like unsettled children. Now, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has found a young ...
'Ultra-primitive' particles found in comet dust
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Nov 02, 2009 |
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Dust samples collected by high-flying aircraft in the upper atmosphere have yielded an unexpectedly rich trove of relicts from the ancient cosmos, report scientists from the Carnegie Institution. The stratospheric ...
