A comet was recorded by the Egyptians described a brilliant disk much larger than the full moon as it flew across the sky with ten tails. Ancient Egyptians described a comet just barely passing the Earth.
Though ancient cultures often saw comets as harbingers of doom, the cosmic “dirty snowballs” are now viewed as important objects that could help scientists learn more about the early evolution of the solar system.
After 12 years chasing a comet across more 6 billion km of space, European scientists will end the historic Rosetta mission by crash landing the spacecraft on the surface of the dusty, icy body at the end of the month.
Like cosmic ballet dancers, the stars of the Pleiades cluster are spinning. But these celestial dancers are all twirling at different speeds. Astronomers have long wondered what determines the rotation rates of these stars.
The spectacular Perseid meteor shower, peaking Thursday night (Aug. 11–12), lights up Earth’s sky every summer as Earth passes through the trail left by Comet Swift-Tuttle, a miles-wide behemoth that swings by Earth every 133 years.
Detailed analysis of data collected by Rosetta show that comets are the ancient leftovers of early Solar System formation, and not younger fragments resulting from subsequent collisions between other, larger bodies. Understanding how and when objects like Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko took shape is of utmost importance in determining how exactly they can be used to interpret
Scientists finally have a theory as to why comet 67P—also known as Rosetta’s comet—has two distinct lobes.
Comets might hold the key to how life started on earth.
The comet C/2014 S3 is an odd comet without a tail, but it could very well unlock secrets to how planets are formed.
