Coments

COMETS

Not long ago, many people thought that comets were a sign that something bad was about to happen to them. People didn't understand about how objects in the sky moved, so the sight of a comet must have been very disturbing. There are many historical records and works of art which record the appearance of comets and link them with terrible events such as wars or plagues.

Now we know that comets are lumps of ice and rock that periodically come into the center of the solar system from somewhere in its outer reaches, and that some comets make repeated trips. When comets get close enough to the Sun, heat makes them start to evaporate. Jets of gas and dust form long tails that we can see from Earth. These tails can sometimes be millions of miles long.

Hale-Bopp

This is a full view of the Comet Hale-Bop.

This is another view of the Comet Hale-Bop.

Another view of Hale-Bop.

Another view of Hale-Bop.

Halley

This image shows the ray structure of Halley's Comet. (Courtesy of NASA)

Hyakutake

This is a full view of Comet Hyakatuke.

Linear

This image shows Comet Linear brightening when it blew off part of its crust.
 

Shoemaker-Levy 9

This is an image of Shoemaker-Levy 9 taken with the Wide-Field/Planetary Camera on the Hubble Space Telescope.

Kohoutek

 

This is an image of Comet Kohoutek.

This is a near-infrared image of the G and D impacts on Jupiter taken from the Apache Point Observatory on July 19, 1994. (Courtesy of Mark Marley and Nancy Chanover, Department of Astronomy, New Mexico State University)

This sequence shows the A impact of July 16, 1994. (Courtesy of NASA/NSSDC, Tom Herbst, Max-Planck-Institut fuer Astronomie, Heidelberg, Doug Hamilton, Max-Planck-Institut fuer Kernphysik, Heidelberg, Hermann Boehnhardt, Universitaets-Sternewarte, Muenchen, and Jose Luis Ortiz Moreno, Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia, Granada)

Comets Names

Arend-Roland
Bennett
Biela
Borrelly
Brorsen-Metcalf
Chiron
d'Arrest
Donati
Encke
Giacobini-Zinner
Grigg-Skjellerup
Hale-Bopp
Halley
Hyakutake
Ikeya-Seki
IRAS-Araki-
Alcock
Kohoutek
Lexell
Linear
Morehouse
Mrkos
Schwassmann-Wachmann
Shoemaker-Levy 9
Swift-Tuttle
Tempel 1
Tempel 2
West
Wild 2
Wirtanen