Tagged: comets

A new study by a Belgian team using data from the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) has shown that iron and nickel exist in the atmospheres of comets throughout our Solar System, even those far from the Sun. A separate study by...

Comets are some of the most stunning elements of space. These clumps of dust and ice feature amazing tails that can stretch for thousands of miles. This gallery showcases some examples of comets. The comet Hyakutake is seen in the skies over Florida. It is...

Roughly 70,000 years ago, early humans may have looked up in the night sky and seen a bright reddish star flaring up that isn’t visible to the naked eye today. Called Scholz’s star — after German astronomer Ralf-Dieter Scholz who spotted it in 2013 —...

Here on Earth, we’ve gotten used to pulling out a smartphone and being able to talk, text or send and receive photographs and video from virtually anywhere on the planet’s surface. Moreover, we’re increasingly dependent upon tapping into the vast, burgeoning amount of information on...

Scientists have identified a ring of ice, dust and young comets around a star similar to our sun, shedding light on how our own solar system may have developed. Comets and comet clouds form early in the life span of a solar system, and are...

Almost 56 million years ago, a mysterious release of carbon into our atmosphere caused temperatures on Earth to rise between 5 and 9 degrees Centigrade over the course of a few thousand years. This super-accelerated warming event, called the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), is generally...

When Europe’s Rosetta mission detected molecular oxygen venting into space from comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2015, scientists were puzzled. Molecular oxygen is composed of two oxygen atoms (O2). It’s the same stuff that we breathe here on Earth, but it’s highly unstable in space. O2 is...

Astronomers think Scholz’s star may have gotten within less than a light-year from our sun about 70,000 years ago. It’s the closest approach a star has ever made. JOSÉ A. PEÑAS/SINC Roughly 70,000 years ago, early humans may have looked up in the night sky...

Comet 21P, seen here in a photo taken Aug. 18, 2018 from Moscow, is made up of ice, dust, rocky particles and frozen gasses. ALEXANDER VASENIN, USED UNDER CREATIVE COMMONS CC BY-SA 4.0 LICENSE Autumn stargazing is a tradition for many people. Nights get longer...

A. Sutherland – Greek philosopher Aristotle who observed comets called them ‘stars with hair’. We often call them ‘snowballs’. These cosmic snowballs of frozen gases, rock and dust are approximately the size of a small town. The gases and dust form an gigantic tail that...