Pons-Brooks is prone to occasionally spit ice and gas into space, increasing the size of its nucleus and boosting the comet's brightness. That happened in the summer of 2023 when Pons-Brooks ...

The cryovolcanic "centaur" comet 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann has erupted four times in less than 48 hours, becoming unusually ...

This is not unusual behavior for a comet, but it can be a sign of nucleus fragmentation – where the main body, or nucleus, of ...

"The comet's nucleus is clearly visible, surrounded by a dusty coma and trailing an impressively long tail," ESA said. "SOHO sees the large dust tail edge-on, curving in on itself as it is pushed ...

Unfortunately, that didn’t last for very long as the comet’s nucleus disintegrated just a few days after its encounter with the Sun. In 1965, comet Ikeya-Seki was discovered by two amateur ...

The comet’s nucleus will miss Mars by about 82,000 miles (132,000 kilometers), shedding material hurtling at about 35 miles per second (56 km/s), relative to Mars and Mars-orbiting spacecraft.

It is also unstable. The comet nucleus releases a constant stream of molecules and dust particles with high velocities, developing a thin coma. The complex interaction with solar radiation and the ...

Also included is the strength of and variation in the external field, namely the influence of the solar wind interplanetary magnetic field near the comet nucleus. At distances of 10 m or greater ...

The nuclei of most comets are about 1-2 miles across. The nucleus of Halley's comet, which is considered to be fairly large, was approximately 10 miles across in its largest dimension. Hale-Bopp's ...