Howardites
Topic

#Comets

Icy wanderers whose dust makes meteor showers.

Lessons (3)

  • Meteor showers and cometsMeteor showers are the most reliable shows in the night sky. They come from comets, and they teach us a lot about how meteors and meteorites
  • Sample return: ground truth for meteoriticsSamples collected directly from known bodies test the links that meteoriticists have proposed for decades, and reveal what meteorites alone
  • Shooting starsHave you ever seen a quick flash of light race across the night sky? That was a meteor. Let's find out what is really happening up there

Courses (5)

Space missions (19)

  • Comet InterceptorA mission that will wait in space for a pristine comet, then split into three to meet it.
  • CONTOURA mission to compare comets that was lost six weeks after launch. CONTOUR, the Comet Nucleus Tour, was designed to show how different comets
  • Deep ImpactThe mission that fired a copper projectile into a comet to see what lay beneath its crust.
  • Deep Space 1The spacecraft that proved ion engines in deep space, then flew past a comet. Deep Space 1 was built to test new technology so that later mi
  • DESTINY+A planned flyby of the rocky asteroid that feeds the Geminid meteor shower. Most meteor showers come from comets: icy bodies that shed dust
  • GalileoThe first close look at an asteroid, and the discovery that asteroids can have moons.
  • GiottoEurope's first deep-space mission flew within 600 kilometres of Halley's Comet. Giotto was named after the Italian painter Giotto di
  • International Cometary ExplorerThe first spacecraft to meet a comet, flying through the tail of the parent of the Draconid meteors.
  • LucyA twelve-year tour of the Trojan asteroids, possible fossils of planet formation. The Trojan asteroids travel around the Sun in two great sw
  • Mars ExpressEurope's long-lived Mars orbiter, which has made the closest flybys of the moon Phobos.
  • NEOWISEAn infrared telescope that measured the sizes of tens of thousands of asteroids. WISE, the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, was launched
  • PsycheThe first visit to a world rich in metal, which may be the exposed core of a shattered planet.
  • Rosetta and PhilaeThe first spacecraft to orbit a comet and to land on one. Rosetta spent ten years catching up with comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko.
  • Sakigake and SuiseiJapan's first interplanetary spacecraft, sent to meet Halley's Comet. Halley's Comet returns to the inner Solar System about eve
  • SOHOA solar observatory that has become the greatest comet discoverer in history. The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, SOHO, was launched to
  • StardustThe first sample from a comet, and the surprise that it contained rock formed close to the Sun.
  • Tianwen-2China's mission to sample a tiny companion of Earth that may be a piece of the Moon.
  • Mission timeline213 milestones in the exploration of asteroids, comets, the Moon and Mars, from Luna and Apollo to Hayabusa2, OSIRIS-REx and Chang'e 6.
  • Vega 1 and 2Twin spacecraft that dropped balloons into Venus's clouds, then took the first pictures of a comet's nucleus. The two Vega spacecraf

Meteorite minerals (1)

  • OsborniteTitanium nitride, golden cubes found in enstatite meteorites and in comet dust. Osbornite is a compound of titanium and nitrogen, extremely

Glossary (46)

Questions and answers (20)

Meteor showers (44)

Impact craters (1)

  • Tunguska (airburst, no crater)On the morning of 30 June 1908 an enormous explosion shook the forests near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in central Siberia.

Impact events (2)

  • SudburyA giant impact that left one of the world's richest metal deposits. The Sudbury Basin in Ontario is the deformed remains of an impact cr
  • The Younger Dryas impact hypothesisDid a comet trigger a sudden cold snap at the end of the last ice age? A fair look at a fierce debate.

Asteroids (1)

  • AnnefrankAnnefrank is a small asteroid in the inner main belt, about 6 kilometres long, that played a supporting role in one of the great space missi

Comets (41)

  • Comet 169P/NEATThe faint parent of the Alpha Capricornids, a summer shower famous for slow, bright fireballs.
  • 2003 EH1, the Quadrantid parentA dark rock that may be all that is left of a comet seen in 1490, and the parent of the Quadrantids.
  • Comet 209P/LINEARA faint, worn-out comet whose much-hyped meteor shower in 2014 taught astronomers how little dust some comets make.
  • Comet 3I/ATLASThe third visitor from another star, found in July 2025 and watched by a fleet of spacecraft across the Solar System.
  • Comet 67P/Churyumov–GerasimenkoThe rubber-duck-shaped comet that Rosetta orbited for two years and Philae landed on. 67P is a Jupiter-family comet with a period of six and
  • Comet BielaThe comet that split in two and vanished, leaving only spectacular meteor storms to show where it had been.
  • Comet BlanpainA tiny comet lost for 184 years, found again as an asteroid, and the source of the Phoenicid meteor storm of 1956.
  • Comet BorisovThe first comet known to come from another star, found by an amateur with a telescope he built himself.
  • Comet BorrellyA dark, bowling-pin-shaped comet, the second nucleus ever photographed up close. Borrelly goes round the Sun every seven years, from beyond
  • Elst–Pizarro, the first main-belt cometAn asteroid in the main belt that grows a dusty tail, showing that ice survives among the asteroids meteorites come from.
  • Comet EnckeThe comet with the shortest period of any well-known comet, and the source of the Taurids and their bright fireballs.
  • Comet FinlayA comet that gave birth to a new southern meteor shower, the Arids, first seen in 2021.
  • Comet Giacobini–ZinnerThe parent of the October Draconids, and the first comet ever visited by a spacecraft.
  • Comet Grigg–SkjellerupThe second comet Giotto visited, and the parent of the southern Pi Puppids. Grigg–Skjellerup goes round the Sun every five years or so.
  • Comet Hale–BoppThe Great Comet of 1997, visible to the naked eye for a record 18 months, with a giant nucleus about 60 km wide.
  • Halley's CometThe most famous comet of all, and the parent of two meteor showers: the Eta Aquariids in May and the Orionids in October.
  • Comet Hartley 2A small, hyperactive peanut-shaped comet that blew out snowballs, visited by the Deep Impact spacecraft in 2010.
  • Comet HolmesThe comet that brightened nearly a million times in a day in 2007, briefly becoming bigger than the Sun.
  • Comet HyakutakeThe Great Comet of 1996, which swept within 15 million km of Earth with a tail stretching across the sky.
  • Ikeya–Seki and the Kreutz sungrazersA family of comets that skim the surface of the Sun, including Ikeya–Seki, one of the brightest comets of the last thousand years.
  • Comet IRAS–Araki–AlcockThe comet that passed closer to Earth in 1983 than any other for two centuries, and the parent of the Eta Lyrids.
  • Comet ISONThe 'comet of the century' that never was: it fell apart while skimming the Sun in November 2013.
  • Comet KiessA long-period comet whose single narrow dust trail gives the Aurigids rare, predictable outbursts.
  • Comet MachholzA strange, sun-scorched comet at the centre of a family of comets and meteor showers.
  • Comet McNaughtThe Great Comet of 2007, the brightest in over 40 years, with a spectacular fanned tail over the southern hemisphere.
  • Comet MellishA comet of 1917 that is the parent of the December Monocerotids, and possibly of several other faint showers.
  • Comet NEOWISEThe brightest comet of the 2020s so far for northern observers, discovered by a space telescope hunting asteroids.
  • 'Oumuamua, the first interstellar visitorThe first object ever seen passing through the Solar System from another star, a puzzling, elongated body with no visible tail.
  • Comet Pons–BrooksA 71-year comet that returned in 2024 with repeated outbursts, giving it horn-like shapes and the nickname 'devil comet'.
  • Comet Pons–WinneckeA comet whose orbit Jupiter keeps reshaping, which explains the surprise outbursts of the June Bootids.
  • Comet Schwassmann–Wachmann 1A 60-kilometre icy body on a nearly circular orbit beyond Jupiter, which erupts several times a year.
  • Comet Schwassmann–Wachmann 3A comet caught falling to pieces, which gave the Tau Herculid shower its first real display in 2022.
  • Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9The comet torn apart by Jupiter, whose pieces crashed into the planet in July 1994 while the world watched.
  • Comet Swift–TuttleThe 26-kilometre comet whose dust gives the Perseids every August, and the largest object that regularly passes close to Earth.
  • Comet Tempel 1The comet that Deep Impact struck with a 370-kilogram copper-tipped probe in 2005, to see what lay beneath the surface.
  • Comet Tempel–TuttleThe small comet behind the Leonids, whose dust trails have produced the greatest meteor storms ever seen.
  • Comet ThatcherThe comet behind the April Lyrids, the oldest meteor shower on record. Comet Thatcher swings round the Sun once every four centuries or so.
  • Comet Tsuchinshan–ATLASThe bright comet of October 2024, with a long tail and a rare antitail pointing towards the Sun.
  • Comet TuttleA double-lobed comet whose dust brings the Ursids just before Christmas. Tuttle goes round the Sun every 13.6 years, reaching from just outs
  • Comet Wild 2The comet whose dust Stardust brought back to Earth, and which turned out to contain grains made close to the young Sun.
  • Comet WirtanenRosetta's first-choice target, which passed close to Earth in December 2018 and is a candidate for future missions.

Micrometeorites (4)

Myths and folklore (1)

  • The Tears of St LawrenceThe August meteors named after a martyred saint. Lawrence of Rome was a deacon put to death in the year 258, during a persecution of Christi

People (8)

  • Carolyn ShoemakerThe astronomer who began searching the sky in her fifties and discovered more comets than almost anyone, including the one that hit Jupiter.
  • Denison OlmstedThe Yale professor who studied the great Leonid meteor storm of 1833 and showed that meteors come from space.
  • Donald BrownleeThe astronomer who first collected dust from comets and asteroids in the stratosphere, and who led NASA's Stardust mission to a comet. D
  • Ernst ÖpikThe Estonian astronomer who studied meteors for half a century, predicted that comets come from a vast distant cloud, and worked at Armagh i
  • Eugene ShoemakerThe founder of planetary geology, who proved Meteor Crater was an impact and co-discovered the comet that hit Jupiter.
  • Fred WhippleThe Harvard astronomer who described comets as dirty snowballs and pioneered measuring meteor orbits from photographs.
  • Giovanni SchiaparelliThe Milan astronomer who showed in 1866 that the Perseid meteors follow the orbit of a comet.
  • Monica GradyThe British planetary scientist who curated meteorites at the Natural History Museum, edited the world catalogue and worked on the Rosetta c