Comet Craze
Comet: Short Summary
Comet Craze
Comet: Short Summary
Comets are huge balls of ice that fly through space. They are formed at the mysterious Oort Cloud( named after the man who discovered it).
Aristotle once said that comets were atmospherical disturbances. He was proved wrong by a Danish man named Tycho Brahe. When the Great Comet of 1577 arrived, Tycho was mentally ready to consider that Aristotle might have been wrong to think that comets are just atmospheric events. He measured the position of the comet at different times. As the Earth rotated at night, the comet's place among the stars would have changed if it were in our atmosphere, but he found no change. The comet had to be beyond the Moon. Aristotle was wrong again. The groundwork was now laid for understanding the universe. Soon, the German Johannes Kepler would build on Tycho's discoveries, and then the Englishman Isaac Newton would build on Kepler's. The universe would never be the same.
Not long ago, people were terified of comets. Since they didn't know what comets were and didn't understand them, they thought they were signs of misfortune and that some bad things were going to happen, like wars and plages. Now we know that comets are just clumps of cumprest ice and rocks.
Today we can see comets gliding through the sky. If you look closly you my be abale to see a long thin tail streaming behind it.These tails are formed when comets get close to the sun and begin to melt and evaporate. Dust and ice comes lose and leaves a trail of particules behind, forming the tail of the comet. Most comets have two tails, but you can usaly only one .One is formed by dust particles, the other is ionized gas. The tail of some comets can be millons of miles long.
Orbital Perihelion Perihelion Semi-Major Orbital Orbital Absolute
Number & Name Period Date Distance Axis Eccentricity Inclination Magnitude
------------- ------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ------------ ----------- ---------
1P Halley 76.1 yrs. 1986-02-09 0.587 AU 17.94 AU 0.967 162.2 deg. 5.5
2P Encke 3.30 yrs. 2000-09-09 0.339 AU 2.21 AU 0.847 11.8 deg. 9.8
6P d'Arrest 6.51 yrs. 2008-08-01 1.346 AU 3.49 AU 0.614 19.5 deg. 8.5
9P Tempel 1 5.51 yrs. 2005-07-07 1.497 AU 3.12 AU 0.519 10.5 deg.
19P Borrelly 6.80 yrs. 2001-09-14 1.365 AU 3.59 AU 0.623 30.3 deg.
21P Giacobini-Zinner 6.52 yrs. 1998-11-21 0.996 AU 3.52 AU 0.706 31.8 deg. 9.0
26P Grigg-Skjellerup 5.09 yrs. 1992-07-22 0.989 AU 2.96 AU 0.664 21.1 deg. 12.5
27P Crommelin 27.89 yrs. 1984-09-01 0.743 AU 9.20 AU 0.919 29.0 deg. 12.0
45P Honda-Mrkos
-Pajdusakova 5.29 yrs. 1995-12-25 0.581 AU 3.02 AU 0.825 4.3 deg. 13.5
46P Wirtanen 5.46 yrs. 2013-10-21 1.063 AU 3.12 AU 0.652 11.7 deg. 9.0
55P Tempel-Tuttle 32.92 yrs. 1998-02-28 0.982 AU 10.33 AU 0.906 162.5 deg. 9.0
73P Schwassmann 5.35 yrs. 2006-06-02 0.933 AU 3.06 AU 0.695 11.4 deg.
-Wachmann 3
75P Kohoutek 6.24 yrs. 1973-12-28 1.571 AU 3.4 AU 0.537 5.4 deg.
76P West-Kohoutek
-Ikemura 6.46 yrs. 2000-06-01 1.596 AU 3.45 AU 0.540 30.5 deg.
81P Wild 2 6.39 yrs. 2003-09-25 1.583 AU 3.44 AU 0.540 3.2 deg. 6.5
95P Chiron 50.7 yrs. 1996-02-14 8.46 AU 13.7 AU 0.38 7 deg.
107P Wilson-Harrington 4.30 yrs. 2001-03-24 1.000 AU 2.64 AU 0.622 2.8 deg.
Hale-Bopp 4000. yrs. 1997-03-31 0.914 AU 250. AU 0.995 89.4 deg.
Hyakutake ~40000. yrs. 1996-05-01 0.230 AU ~1165. AU 0.9998 124.9 deg.
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Halley - Subject of the International Halley Watch (IHW), a coordinated
effort of ground-based and spacecraft observations.
Encke - Planned encounter by CONTOUR mission on 12 November 2003. Radar
observations made by Arecibo Observatory in 1980 indicated a radius of 0.4
to 4.0 km.
d'Arrest - Planned encounter by CONTOUR mission on 16 August 2008.
Tempel 1 - Planned encounter and sample return by Champollion mission in
2006.
Borrelly - Possible target of New Millenium Deep Space 1 spacecraft in 2001.
Giacobini-Zinner - Target of ICE flyby on 11 Sep 1985 within 7800 km.
Grigg-Skjellerup - Target of Giotto flyby (within 200 km) on 10 July 1992.
Crommelin - Subject of 1984 test of the IHW network.
Honda-Mrkos-Pajdusakova - Originally planned target of Sakigake flyby at
10,000 km on 3 Feb 1996.
Wirtanen - To be visited by the ESA Rosetta mission in 2011.
Temple-Tuttle - Originally planned target of Suisei flyby on 28 Feb 1998.
Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 - Planned encounter by CONTOUR mission on 18 June
2006. Split into three large pieces in 1995.
Kohoutek - Observed by Skylab astronauts in Dec 1973 and Jan 1974.
West-Kohoutek-Ikemura - Original target of New Millenium Deep Space 1
spacecraft in 2000.
Wild 2 - Planned target of the Discovery coma sample return mission,
Stardust , in Jan 2004.
Wilson-Harrington - Possible target of New Millenium Deep Space 1 spacecraft
in 2001.
Chiron - Comet/asteroid, also known as asteroid 2060 Chiron. Subject of the
Chiron Perihelion Campaign
Hale-Bopp - Discovered in July 1995. Bright comet, made closest approach to
Earth on 22 March 1997.
Hyakutake - Discovered in January 1996. Passed within 0.1 AU of Earth on 25
March 1996.