Comets

Comet Nishimura, as imaged on September 7. On Tuesday, the comet will pass within 78 million miles of Earth, the closest it will get for more than 400 years.

Newly Discovered Green Comet Is Passing By Earth This Week

Comet Nishimura, which appears only once every 435 years, is on track to approach the sun and shoot into deep space

A meteor streaks across the sky during the 2016 Perseid meteor shower in Spruce Knob, West Virginia.

How to Watch the Highly Anticipated Perseid Meteor Shower

This weekend, sky conditions will be almost perfect to catch a glimpse of shooting stars during one of the year's best celestial shows

Southern Delta Aquariids meteors and the Milky Way above Mount St. Helens

How to Watch the Striking Southern Delta Aquariids Meteor Shower

The spectacle is among several showers brightening skies this week, including the highly anticipated Perseids

A person who discovered and approached the possible meteorite said it felt warm to the touch.

Possible Meteorite Crashes Into New Jersey Bedroom

The rock broke through the roof and ceiling of a home but did not cause any injuries

Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) viewed through a telescope on December 24, 2022. It will reach its nearest point to Earth in early February.

Catch a Glimpse of a Rare Green Comet This Month

Skywatchers should be able to spot the once-in-a-lifetime spectacle with binoculars

A waning crescent moon, pictured here, occurs right before a new moon. The second new moon in a single calendar month is often called a black moon.

View a Rare Black Moon This Weekend

The phenomenon will also be marked by a partial solar eclipse

The research team confirmed the comet's size with photos taken by Hubble Space Telescope in January 2022. The comet's nucleus is seen as a bright dot of light in the photos. With the computer model, the team removed the hazy glow of the coma to leave behind the bright star-like nucleus.

Hubble Space Telescope Spots Largest Comet Ever Discovered

The icy object is larger than the state of Rhode Island and weighs an estimated 500 trillion tons

Archeologists have found that the Ohio Hopewell collected the meteorites and forged jewelry and pan flutes out of them. Other astonishing evidence that ties in the comet include a comet-shaped earthwork called Milford Earthworks that the Hopewell people constructed near the airburst's epicenter.

Scientists Find 'Chemical Fingerprint' of Comet Airburst That May Have Ignited the Decline of Hopewell Culture

Many Indigenous groups documented the cosmic event with oral histories and other records, including earthworks

The 55-faceted gemstone is believed to be the largest cut black diamond in the world.

A Huge Black Diamond, Purportedly From Outer Space, Is Now Up for Sale

The gem known as the 'Enigma' is expected to fetch around $7 million at auction, though experts are skeptical of its cosmic origin

Stargazers watch Comet Neowise shoot across the sky on July 19, 2020 outside of Los Angeles, California.

Ten Dazzling Celestial Events to See in 2022

Stargazers in North America can look forward to meteor showers, lunar eclipses and a stunning multi-planet lineup this year

Over the course of our planet’s history, major impacts by comets and asteroids are plentiful.

The Very Real Effort to Track Killer Asteroids and Comets

In "Don't Look Up," researchers warn authorities about a comet hurtling towards Earth. Such a scenario isn’t just science fiction

As comets near the sun, they begin to form a head and tail.

Meet Leonard, the Brightest Comet of the Year

The celestial object will reach peak visibility in the northern hemisphere on December 12 and should be visible until the end of the month

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope snapped this picture of the Centaur LD2 as it orbited near Jupiter.

The Ambitious Idea to Study the Evolution of a Comet

Researchers want to send a spacecraft near Jupiter to join up with a chunk of rock and ice as it’s flung toward the sun

The researchers plan to to gather images, measurements and possibly samples of the meteorite, per CTV News. They are also asking residents near Golden to check for video, such as dash cam footage, from October 3 at 11:33 p.m. that may have captured a glimpse of the fireball. (Pictured: A shooting star streaks across a starry sky in British Columbia; image is not associated with the incident.)

Meteorite Crash-Landed in a Canada Woman's Bed While She Slept

Ruth Hamilton awoke unharmed when the fist-sized space rock landed on her pillows

“Air temperatures rapidly rose above 3,600 degrees Fahrenheit,” writes study co-author Christopher Moore. “Clothing and wood immediately burst into flames. Swords, spears, mudbricks and pottery began to melt. Almost immediately, the entire city was on fire.”

Ancient City's Destruction by Exploding Space Rock May Have Inspired Biblical Story of Sodom

Around 1650 B.C.E., the Bronze Age city of Tall el-Hammam was wiped out by a blast 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb used at Hiroshima

People lie on the ground to view the Perseid meteor shower in Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado at an astronomy night event on August 12, 2018.

How to Watch the Perseid Meteor Shower

Known for its 'fireball' meteors, the Perseid shower began on July 14 and will peak in mid-August

Astronomers used the Keck Observatory in Hawai'i to analyze what chemical building blocks made up the Comet 46/P Wirtanen.

Boozy Comet's Mysterious Heat Source Offers Clues to How Planets Like Earth Obtain Water

The cosmic relic contains minerals from when the solar system first formed and high amounts of methanol

Like the newly-identified 2014 UN271, the NEOWISE comet pictured here is a long-period comet originating in the Oort Cloud.

Giant Comet From the Oort Cloud Will Pass by the Sun in 2031

Astronomers used about 40 observations of the object, which is called 2014 UN271, to estimate its size and orbit

Published in Scientific Reports, the new study by astronomers Amir Siraj and Avi Loeb of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, propose that a series of break-ups and chance events sent the huge chunk of space rock our way.

Astrophysicists Chart Source of Asteroid That Killed Dinosaurs

A new model explains a possible route for the extraterrestrial rock before it blasted Earth

In the background, an image taken from the Northern Hemisphere of Comet NEOWISE on July 18, 2020. Inset, the Hubble Space Telescope's most recent snapshot of NEOWISE, taken on August 8 as it careens away from Earth.

Hubble Snapshots Reveal That Comet Neowise Survived Its Trip Around the Sun

A close-up taken in August shows the 11,000-mile-wide cloud of dust and gas that shrouds the comet

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