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Coma (comet) The coma is the nebulous envelope around the nucleus of a comet, formed when the comet passes near the Sun in its highly elliptical orbit. As the comet warms, parts of it sublimate; [ 1] this gives a comet a diffuse appearance when viewed through telescopes and distinguishes it from stars. The word coma comes from the Greek ...
2.1 (in 1986) [ 14] 28.2 (in 2003) [ 15] Halley's Comet is the only known short-period comet that is consistently visible to the naked eye from Earth, [ 16] appearing every 72–80 years. [ 17] It last appeared in the inner parts of the Solar System in 1986 and will next appear in mid-2061. Officially designated 1P/Halley, it is also commonly ...
Named by year. The Great January Comet of 1910, named after the date it appeared. Before any systematic naming convention was adopted, comets were named in a variety of ways. Prior to the early 20th century, most comets were simply referred to by the year when they appeared e.g. the "Comet of 1702". Particularly bright comets which came to ...
Comet. A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that warms and begins to release gases when passing close to the Sun, a process called outgassing. This produces an extended, gravitationally unbound atmosphere or coma surrounding the nucleus, and sometimes a tail of gas and dust gas blown out from the coma.
Comet nucleus. The nucleus of Comet Tempel 1. The nucleus is the solid, central part of a comet, formerly termed a dirty snowball or an icy dirtball. A cometary nucleus is composed of rock, dust, and frozen gases. When heated by the Sun, the gases sublime and produce an atmosphere surrounding the nucleus known as the coma.
The Great Southern Comet of 1887, or C/1887 B1 using its International Astronomical Union (IAU) designation, was a bright comet seen from the Southern Hemisphere during January 1887. Later calculations indicated it to be part of the Kreutz Sungrazing group. It came to perihelion (closest approach to the center of the Sun) on 11 January 1877 at ...
Luboš Kohoutek. Luboš Kohoutek ( Czech pronunciation: [ˈkoɦou̯tɛk]; 29 January 1935 – 30 December 2023) was a Czech astronomer and a discoverer of minor planets and comets, including Comet Kohoutek which was visible to the naked eye in 1973. [2] [3] He also discovered a large number of planetary nebulae. [4]
Lists of comets. Coin showing Caesar's Comet as a star with eight rays, tail upward. Non-periodic comets are seen only once. They are usually on near- parabolic orbits that will not return to the vicinity of the Sun for thousands of years, if ever. Periodic comets usually have elongated elliptical orbits, and usually return to the vicinity of ...