Comet 57P Falls to Pieces
2.08.2002

Comet 57P has fallen to pieces, at least 19 of them. Orbiting the Sun every 5.9 years or so this faint comet - also christened Comet 57P/du Toit-Neujmin-Delporte for its three 1941 co-discoverers - is simply...

Comet Iwamoto Before Spiral Galaxy NGC 2903
19.02.2019

It isn't every night that a comet passes a galaxy. Last Thursday, though, binocular comet C/2018 Y1 (Iwamoto) moved nearly in front of a spiral galaxy of approximately the same brightness: NGC 2903. Comet Iwamoto was discovered late last year and orbits the Sun in a long ellipse.

The Ghostly Tail of Comet SWAN
6.11.2006

What causes the structure in Comet SWAN's tail? Comet SWAN, which unexpectedly flared up to naked-eye brightness last week, has been showing detail in its ion tail that might be described as ghostly.

Comet Borrelly's Nucleus
26.09.2001

What does a comet nucleus look like? To answer this question, NASA controllers drove an aging probe through the hostile environs of a distant comet, expecting that even if comet fragments disabled the spacecraft, it would be worth the risk. The probe, Deep Space 1, survived.

SOHOs Twin Sungrazers
11.06.1998

This four frame animation (courtesy D. Biesecker) shows two comets arcing toward a fatal fiery encounter with the Sun. These discovery images were recorded by the LASCO instrument on board the space-based SOHO solar observatory on June 1-2.

APOD: 2026 August 8 Б A Messier Moment for Tempel 2
8.08.2026

Which of these is not a comet? You guessed it - the one on the right is a globular star cluster. The diffuse greenish coma of periodic comet 10P/Tempel 2 is at left in the frame.

M64: The Black Eye Galaxy
20.07.2023

This magnificent spiral galaxy is Messier 64, often called the Black Eye Galaxy or the Sleeping Beauty Galaxy for its dark-lidded appearance in telescopic views. The spiral's central region, about 7,400 light-years across, is pictured in this reprocessed image from the Hubble Space Telescope.

Vega and Comet 12P Pons-Brooks
8.12.2023

On December 4, periodic Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks shared this telescopic field of view with Vega, alpha star of the northern constellation Lyra. Fifth brightest star in planet Earth's night, Vega is some 25 light-years distant while the much fainter comet was about 21 light-minutes away.

Comet C/2025 F2 SWAN
18.04.2025

In late March, the comet now designated C/2025 F2 SWAN was found independently by citizen scientists Vladimir Bezugly, Michael Mattiazzo, and Rob Matson while examining publicly available image data from the Solar Wind ANisotropies (SWAN) camera on the sun-staring SOHO spacecraft.

Encke and the Tadpoles
27.10.2023

History's second known periodic comet is Comet Encke (2P/Encke). As it swings through the inner Solar System, Encke's orbit takes it from an aphelion, its greatest distance from the Sun, inside the orbit of Jupiter to a perihelion just inside the orbit of Mercury.