Topic: Oort Cloud

NASA’s STEREO-B spacecraft observes Comet Pan-STARRS survive it’s trip by the Sun

March 16, 2013 |

Written by Dr. Tony Phillips
Science at NASA

Washington, D.C. – For a comet, visiting the sun is risky business. Fierce solar heat vaporizes gases long frozen in the fragile nucleus, breaking up some comets and completely destroying others.

That’s why astronomers weren’t sure what would happen in early March when Comet Pan-STARRS, a first-time visitor to the inner solar system, dipped inside the orbit of Mercury.

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NASA reports Comet from the Oort Cloud to pass by Earth in March

February 7, 2013 |

Written by Dr. Tony Phillips
Science at NASA

Washington, D.C. – Far beyond the orbits of Neptune and Pluto, where the sun is a pinprick of light not much brighter than other stars, a vast swarm of icy bodies circles the solar system. Astronomers call it the “Oort Cloud,” and it is the source of some of history’s finest comets.

One of them could be heading our way now.

Comet Pan-STARRS was discovered by the Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System atop the Haleakala volcano in Hawaii. Astronomers use the massive 1.8 meter telescope to scan the heavens for Earth-approaching objects, both asteroids and comets, that might pose a danger to our planet. In June 2011 a comet appeared, and it was named “Pan-STARRS” after  the acronym for the telescope.

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NASA Says Comet Elenin Gone and Should Be Forgotten

October 27, 2011 |

Written by DC Agle
Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA -Comet Elenin is no more.

Latest indications are this relatively small comet has broken into even smaller, even less significant, chunks of dust and ice. This trail of piffling particles will remain on the same path as the original comet, completing its unexceptional swing through the inner solar system this fall.

“Elenin did as new comets passing close by the sun do about two percent of the time: It broke apart,” said Don Yeomans of NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program Office at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA. “Elenin’s remnants will also act as other broken-up comets act. They will trail along in a debris cloud that will follow a well-understood path out of the inner solar system. After that, we won’t see the scraps of comet Elenin around these parts for almost 12 millennia.”

Trajectory of comet Elenin. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

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Space Observatory Provides Clues to Creation of Earth’s Oceans

October 7, 2011 |

Written by Whitney Clavin
Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – Astronomers have found a new cosmic source for the same kind of water that appeared on Earth billions of years ago and created the oceans. The findings may help explain how Earth’s surface ended up covered in water.

New measurements from the Herschel Space Observatory show that comet Hartley 2, which comes from the distant Kuiper Belt, contains water with the same chemical signature as Earth’s oceans. This remote region of the solar system, some 30 to 50 times as far away as the distance between Earth and the sun, is home to icy, rocky bodies including Pluto, other dwarf planets and innumerable comets.

New measurements from the Herschel Space Observatory have discovered water with the same chemical signature as our oceans in a comet called Hartley 2 (pictured at right). (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

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