Tags: comets

A new study by a Belgian team using data from the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) has shown that iron and nickel exist in the atmospheres of...

Comets are some of the most stunning elements of space. These clumps of dust and ice feature amazing tails that can stretch for thousands of miles. This gallery showcases some...

Roughly 70,000 years ago, early humans may have looked up in the night sky and seen a bright reddish star flaring up that isn’t visible to the naked eye today....

Here on Earth, we’ve gotten used to pulling out a smartphone and being able to talk, text or send and receive photographs and video from virtually anywhere on the planet’s...

Scientists have identified a ring of ice, dust and young comets around a star similar to our sun, shedding light on how our own solar system may have developed. Comets...

Almost 56 million years ago, a mysterious release of carbon into our atmosphere caused temperatures on Earth to rise between 5 and 9 degrees Centigrade over the course of a...

When Europe’s Rosetta mission detected molecular oxygen venting into space from comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2015, scientists were puzzled. Molecular oxygen is composed of two oxygen atoms (O2). It’s the same...

Astronomers think Scholz’s star may have gotten within less than a light-year from our sun about 70,000 years ago. It’s the closest approach a star has ever made. JOSÉ A....

Comet 21P, seen here in a photo taken Aug. 18, 2018 from Moscow, is made up of ice, dust, rocky particles and frozen gasses. ALEXANDER VASENIN, USED UNDER CREATIVE COMMONS...

A. Sutherland – Greek philosopher Aristotle who observed comets called them ‘stars with hair’. We often call them ‘snowballs’. These cosmic snowballs of frozen gases, rock and dust are approximately...