Only four other comets have ever shown such activity while approaching from more than 20 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun ...

An curved arrow pointing right. The Rosetta spacecraft has been trailing a comet for the last two and a half years, on a slow, spinning ride to it's ultimate destruction. But science thanks you ...

“The comet will get so close to the Sun — inside the orbit of planet Mercury — that its nucleus may break up.” There is some debate over whether or not this will be the last time the comet ...

According to initial reports from astronomers, the comet’s orbit around the sun could be once every 80,000 years, making its appearance near Earth a once-in-a-lifetime event. Its closest ...

Sometimes a comet such as Shoemaker Levy 9 will go into orbit around Jupiter and act as a moon. Others leave Jupiter's orbit and go back around the sun. Comets are like cats; they both have tails ...

Scheeres teamed up with colleagues from CU Boulder, Purdue University and several other institutions to discover that the bodies of some comets that orbit the sun may split and reunite in a repeating ...

Astronomers immediately became excited about the comet because it appeared to be unusually bright—even when it was still well outside Jupiter's orbit. Careful analysis of a Hubble Space ...

if it's one comet. PROF. SIMON SCHAFFER:You see here that it was approaching the orbit of the Earth and the sun, in October and November of 1680. And then it disappears behind the sun and ...

The solar system is made up of the Sun (our nearest star) and the objects that orbit around it, including planets, asteroids and comets. Planets orbit the Sun in roughly circular paths ...