comet

Comet ISON, discovered in September of last year by Russian Vitali Nevski, is headed in our direction. And although the sungrazing comet is still more than 394 million miles away (a little closer than Jupiter's current orbit), NASA's Hubble telescope managed to capture an amazing photograph on April 10.

NASA believes that when ISON is at its closest point to the sun on November 28 of this year, it will briefly become brighter than the moon in the sky, making it a serious contender for "comet of the century."

Currently, the comet is headed toward the sun at a speed of around 47,000 miles per hour and has a dusty head of around 3,100 miles wide (about 1.2 times the width of Australia). Its tail trails more than 57,000 miles behind. And yet, the core of the comet's head is tiny -- no more than around 3 to 4 miles across. … Read more

Apparently the bright object that people reported seeing shooting over the East Coast of the United States last night -- and that left a glittery trail across Twitter -- may well have been a meteor.

Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environmental Office told the Associated Press that, "going on visual reports," the flash was "a single meteor event."

"The thing is probably a yard across. We basically have (had) a boulder enter the atmosphere over the northeast," he added.

The object lit up Twitter last night at about 8 p.m. East Coast … Read more

The moon could have some serious competition in 2013.

No, we're not finally building a real Death Star, no matter how much the American people demand one. I'm talking about a surprise visit from a recently discovered heavenly body known as the comet Ison. The chunk of ice and rock has likely broken free from the Oort cloud and is heading our way right now. If it survives the journey, astronomers say it could become even brighter than our lunar neighbor in the night sky as it makes a pass through our neighborhood next fall.

According to NASA, the wayward comet is currently hurtling toward the sun somewhere in the vicinity of Jupiter's orbit. By October, it should come very near Mars, possibly allowing NASA's rovers a view as it shakes its tail in their direction. From there, it appears it will continue toward the center of the solar system, passing within a single solar diameter of the sun's surface before heading back more or less the way it came. … Read more

Around this time of year, the Earth passes through a trail of space debris left over from Halley's Comet's 76-year orbit around the sun, giving us a prime angle to a spectacular shooting-star show.

The Orionid meteor shower's peak -- expected to last from 10:30 p.m. on Saturday to 5 a.m. on Sunday across most of the U.S. -- could produce up to 25 meteors per hour, says Bill Cooke, head of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office. Check in with star-gazing Web site Spacedex to see when Orionid specifically occurs near you. … Read more

How do you collect and retrieve samples from a comet racing through space?

NASA scientists at the Goddard Space Flight Center are in the early stages of working that out, by developing a so-called comet harpoon. Check out this NASA video to see what the scientists have been up to in the harpoon test lab. (They couldn't use a cannon in the lab for safety reasons, so they built a big crossbow.)

Firefox is an open-source browser, and there are plenty of other browsers that are based on Firefox code with minor differences. CometBird is one such browser. Although for the most part it replicates Firefox pretty faithfully, it has a few unique features that set it apart.

We installed CometBird and then launched Firefox beside it; the two are almost--but not quite--indistinguishable. The typical menus are located in the typical places, although CometBird adds a "Softwares" menu that doesn't seem to do anything. CometBird doesn't seem capable of creating tab groups the way Firefox does, but it … Read more

Twelve years after launch and seven years after it collected dust from comet Wild 2, NASA's Stardust probe streaked past comet Tempel 1 late Monday, capturing 72 Valentine's Day closeups to find out how the icy body has changed since it was visited by another NASA spacecraft in 2005.

The renamed Stardust-New Exploration of Tempel mission--Stardust-NExT--passed within about 110 miles of the nucleus of Tempel 1 at 11:40 p.m. EST Monday, using its navigation camera to snap a string of images and recording thousands of dust grain impacts as it raced past at a relative velocity … Read more

Twelve years after launch and seven years after it collected dust from comet Wild 2, NASA's Stardust probe is making a bonus Valentine's Day flyby late today. This time the probe will close in on comet Tempel 1 to find out how the icy body has changed since it was visited by another NASA spacecraft in 2005.

The renamed Stardust-New Exploration of Tempel mission--Stardust-NExT--is on track to pass within about 124 miles of the nucleus of Tempel 1 at 8:37 p.m. PT, snapping 72 high-resolution images and collecting data about the dust environment in the immediate … Read more

A recycled NASA spacecraft passed within 435 miles of Comet Hartley 2 today and beamed back spectacular pictures revealing a strange, peanut-shaped nucleus spewing multiple jets of icy debris.

The Deep Impact spacecraft, the centerpiece of a repurposed mission known by the acronym EPOXI, flew past Hartley 2 at more than 7 miles per second, or 27,000 mph, making its closest approach at 7 a.m. PT.

A few moments later, the spacecraft reoriented itself and aimed its high-gain antenna back toward Earth to begin relaying stored pictures and telemetry. In 2005, the spacecraft flew past comet Tempel 1, … Read more