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Home › Science › Astronomy › Comets

Comets

It is believed that a comet is made up of snow, ice, methane, ammonia, carbon dioxide, and other organic chemicals. It contains three parts: the nucleus, the coma, and the tail.

The nucleus usually has a diameter of one or two miles and is irregularly shaped. At the nucleus goes near to the Sun, the outer surface is melted, forming a gas. Dust is then freed. A dense cloud similar to fog is formed around the nucleus.

The coma – a larger, but less dense cloud – lies beyond this. It may be 50,000 to 60,000 miles in diameter, reflecting sunlight so that the nucleus is obscured.





The tail is formed when ultraviolet light breaks down the gas to form charged particles. These are carried by solar winds straight back as much as 10×106 or more miles. The tail points away from the sun.

Comets move in elliptical orbits. Because they are not massive, they can be overcome by the gravity of such large bodies as Jupiter and Saturn. Most scientists believe in the existence of the Oort Cloud that contains more than a trillion comets.

This is a list of some known comets. Distance is measured in Astronomical Units.

Common Name Year
Discovered
Perihelion
Distance
Arend-Roland 1956 0.316
Bennett 1970 0.538
Biela 1972 0.861
Brorsen-Metcalf 1847 0.479
D’Arrest 1851 1.291
Donati 1858 0.578
Encke 1786 0.341
Giacobini-Zinner 1900 1.028
Halley ???? 0.587
Ikeya-Seki 1965 0.008
IRAS-Araki-Alcock 1983 0.991
Kohoutek 1973 0.142
Lexell 1770 0.674
Morehouse 1908 0.945
Mrkos 1957 0.355
Schwassmann-Wachmann 1 1908 5.448
Swift-Tuttle 1862 0.963
Temple 2 1873 1.381
West 1976 0.197




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