Comet Between Fireworks and Lightning
5.07.2008

Sometimes the sky itself is the best show in town. Last January, people from Perth, Australia gathered on a local beach to watch a sky light up with delights near and far. Nearby, fireworks exploded as part of Australia Day celebrations. On the far right, lightning from a thunderstorm flashed in the distance.

Comet NEOWISE from the ISS
10.07.2020

Rounding the Sun on July 3rd and currently headed for the outer Solar System, Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) has been growing brighter in the predawn skies of planet Earth. From low Earth orbit...

Comet Hale-Bopp Returns
6.02.1997

Comet Hale-Bopp has returned from behind the Sun. In December and early January, Comet Hale-Bopp was too near the Sun to be easily visible from Earth. Now the comet graces the morning sky and is visible from dark locations even without binoculars.

Comet Wirtanen Passes by the Earth
16.12.2018

Today Comet Wirtanen passes by the Earth. The kilometer-sized dirty snowball orbits the Sun every 5.4 years, ranging as far out as Jupiter and as close in as the Earth. Today Comet 46P/Wirtanen passes within only 31 lunar distances to the Earth, the closest approach in 70 years.

Welcome to a Comet
13.11.2014

The Rosetta Mission lander is safely on a comet. One of Philae's feet appears at the bottom left of this spectacular image of the surface of C67/P Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Still a happy lander, Philae...

Comet Between Fireworks and Lightning
5.02.2007

Sometimes the sky itself is the best show in town. On January 26, people from Perth, Australia gathered on a local beach to watch a sky light up with delights near and far. Nearby, fireworks exploded as part of Australia Day celebrations. On the far right, lightning from a thunderstorm flashed in the distance.

Comet and Aurora Over Alaska
22.04.2002

Can you spot the comet? Flowing across the frozen Alaskan landscape is an easily visible, colorful aurora. Just to the lower left, however, well in the background, is something harder to spot: Comet Ikeya-Zhang, the brightest comet of recent years. Although the aurora faded in minutes, the comet is just now beginning to fade.

Explore Rosettas Comet
3.10.2016

What would it be like to fly around a comet nucleus? To find out, just wait for your WebGL-compatible browser to load a detailed digital model of Comet 67P and then -- go exploring! With...

Comet G3 ATLAS: a Tail and a Telescope
24.01.2025

Comet C/2024 G3 ATLAS has made a dramatic appearance in planet Earth's skies. A visitor from the distant Oort Cloud, the comet reached its perihelion on January 13. On January 19, the bright comet was captured here from ESO Paranal Observatory in the Atacama desert in Chile.

Comet 45P Passes Near the Earth
12.02.2017

A large snowball has just passed the Earth. Known as Comet 45P/HondaMrkosPajduАkovА", or 45P for short, the comet came 10 times closer to Earth yesterday than the Earth ever gets to the Sun. During this passage, the comet was photographed sporting a thin ion tail and a faint but expansive green coma.