Sunspot AR1429 unleashed another strong flare (category M7.9) on March 13th. The explosion produced a significant coronal mass ejection (CME), which forecasters say should reach Earth today, March 15th, at 06:20 UT (+/- 7 hours), possibly triggering minor to moderate geomagnetic storms. A bright comet related to sungrazing Comet Lovejoy dove towards the sun earlier…
Comets Archives
Yet Another Coronal Mass Ejection on Its Way
Thursday, March 15th, 2012 at
2:05 pm
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ESA Rosetta Mission to Land on a Comet
Wednesday, February 8th, 2012 at
9:16 pm
Europe’s Rosetta spacecraft is en route to intercept a comet– and to make history. In 2014, Rosetta will enter orbit around comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenkoand land a probe on it, two firsts. Rosetta’s goal is to learn the primordial story a comet tells as it gloriously falls to pieces. Europe’s Rosetta spacecraft is en route to intercept…
ISS Commander Dan Burbank Captures Unprecedented View of Comet Lovejoy
Friday, December 23rd, 2011 at
4:36 pm
International Space Station Commander Dan Burbank captured spectacular imagery of Comet Lovejoy, viewed from about 240 miles above the Earth’s horizon on Wednesday, Dec. 21. Today Burbank described seeing the comet as “the most amazing thing I have ever seen in space,” in an interview with WDIV-TV in Detroit. Burbank took hundreds of still images…
Did the Water in Earth’s Oceans Come From Comets After All?
Wednesday, October 12th, 2011 at
10:17 pm
ESA’s Herschel infrared space observatory has found water in a comet with almost exactly the same composition as Earth’s oceans. The discovery revives the idea that our planet’s seas could once have been giant icebergs floating through space. This illustration shows the orbit of comet Hartley 2 in relation to those of the five innermost…
Bad News for 2010 Armageddonists: Comet Elenin Won’t Destroy Planet Earth!
Saturday, September 3rd, 2011 at
6:17 pm
Often, comets are portrayed as harbingers of gloom and doom in movies and on television, but most pose no threat to Earth. Comet Elenin, the latest comet to visit our inner solar system, is no exception. Elenin will pass about 22 million miles (35 million kilometers) from Earth during its closest approach on Oct. 16,…
Comet Elenin Will Be in the Sky in October
Saturday, August 6th, 2011 at
3:19 pm
Comet Elenin is coming to the inner-solar system this fall/autumn. Comet Elenin (also known by its astronomical name C/2010 X1), was first detected on Dec. 10, 2010 by Leonid Elenin, an observer in Lyubertsy, Russia, who made the discovery “remotely” using the ISON-NM observatory near Mayhill, New Mexico. At the time of the discovery, the…
ESA Rosetta Comet-Hunter to Sleep Through the Loneliest Leg of Its Mission
Tuesday, June 14th, 2011 at
10:32 am
Artist’s impression of the Rosetta orbiter and lander On 8 June, mission controllers had the first opportunity to switch ESA’s Rosetta comet-hunter into deep-space hibernation for 31 months. During this loneliest leg of its decade-long mission, Rosetta will loop ever closer toward comet 67-P, soaring to almost 1000 million km from Earth. Marking one of…
The ESA Remembers the Night of the Comet
Friday, March 11th, 2011 at
5:44 pm
Comet Halley’s nucleus as seen by Giotto Twenty-five years ago, ESA made its mark in deep space. A small spacecraft swept to within 600 km of Halley’s comet. The Giotto probe was nearly destroyed by the encounter but what it saw changed our picture of comets forever. As debuts go, it doesn’t get any better…
NASA Releases Images of the Crater Left by Deep Impactor on Comet Tempel 1 in 2005
Thursday, February 17th, 2011 at
2:57 pm
NASA’s Stardust spacecraft returned new images of a comet showing a scar resulting from the 2005 Deep Impact mission. The images also showed the comet has a fragile and weak nucleus. This pair of images shows the area affected by the impactor released by NASA’s Deep Impact spacecraft in July 2005. On the left, the…
NASA’s Stardust Spacecraft Completes Comet Flyby
Tuesday, February 15th, 2011 at
8:36 pm
Mission controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., watched as data downlinked from the Stardust spacecraft indicated it completed its closest approach with comet Tempel 1. An hour after closest approach, the spacecraft turned to point its large, high-gain antenna at Earth. It is expected that images of the comet’s nucleus collected during the…
NASA’s Stardust-NExT Closes in for Valentine’s Day Rendezvous With Comet Tempel 1
Saturday, February 12th, 2011 at
4:46 pm
NASA is about to discover how solar heat devours a comet. Stardust-NExT chases a comet, an artist’s concept. [more] “For the first time, we’ll see the same comet before and after its closest approach to the sun,” explains Joe Veverka, principal investigator for NASA’s Stardust-NExT mission. The comet is Tempel 1, which NASA’s Deep Impact…
Comet Storm Nosedives Into the Sun
Thursday, January 13th, 2011 at
2:32 pm
The sun has just experienced a storm—not of explosive flares and hot plasma, but of icy comets. “The storm began on Dec 13th and ended on the 22nd,” says Karl Battams of the Naval Research Lab in Washington, DC. “During that time, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) detected 25 comets diving into the sun….
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