Astronomy, features and articles | Educational Science

Aug 7, 2018

NASA's Planet-Hunter Caught Stunning Video of a Distant Comet

For 17 hours on July 25, TESS captured footage of comet C/2018 N1 transiting past the southern constellation Piscis Austrinus. The comet, which is 29 million miles (46 million kilometers) from Earth, drifts from right to left across a backdrop of stars. Its tail, gasses blown from the comet's surface...

Dec 12, 2018

The Rubber Ducky Comet Blasted a Magnetic Path Through Space

Rosetta's comet sent a magnetic shock wave screaming out in front of it, blazing a trail through the stellar wind. And scientists just found it. Astrophysicists had been looking for evidence of such a wave, called a bow shock, around Comet 67p, the rubber ducky comet that the European Space...

Dec 13, 2018

Comet Will Make Closest Approach to Earth This Weekend. And You Can See It Without a Telescope.

As comets blaze across the night sky, they can bring wonder and excitement to those watching from Earth – or even a sense of impending doom. In the past, people debated what comets even are – an atmospheric phenomenon, a fire in the sky, a star with a broom-like tail?...

Feb 6, 2019

Bizarre Space Object 'Oumuamua Could Be a Monstrous Corpse of Comet Dust

That's the explanation laid out by Zdenek Sekanina, an astronomer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in a new, unpublished paper. The explanation draws on observations of comets breaking apart as they get closer to the sun. 'Oumuamua is the interstellar object that astronomers detected whizzing through our solar system in...

Feb 19, 2019

The 'Rubber Ducky' Comet Is Stressed and Keeps Cracking Its Neck

The rubber ducky comet's head has spent 4.5 billion years trying to twist away from its neck. And that's caused some stress fractures. Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, which the European Space Agency explored for two years using its Rosetta probe, takes its name from its dual-lobe shape — which gives it a...

Oct 15, 2019

2nd Interstellar Comet Looks Pretty Normal, Astronomers Say

Observations of the interstellar Comet 2I/Borisov have been flooding in for six weeks, and the more astronomers duplicate one another's work, the more confident they are in their analysis of the object. The prestigious journal Nature Astronomy has now published one of the earlier papers based on this frantic rush...

Dec 2, 2019

Astronomers See Stars Slinging Comets at Earth for the First Time

Stars and comets make unlikely dance partners. Their gravitational partnership is one that astronomers have long suspected but have never seen — until now. For the first time, a Polish group has identified two nearby stars that seem to have plucked up their icy partners, swinging them into orbits around...

Feb 7, 2020

Rosetta's 'rubber ducky' comet changed color as it neared the sun. Here's why.

The Rosetta spacecraft's rubber ducky comet has slowly changed color as it moved through space, from red to blueish and then red again. According to a new paper published Feb. 5 in the journal Nature, the color change is a signal of a water cycle on the first comet ever...

Mar 21, 2020

Newfound Comet ATLAS is getting really bright, really fast

For years, amateur astronomers have been waiting for a bright, naked-eye comet to pass by Earth — and finally, such an object may have arrived. The possible celestial showpiece is known as Comet ATLAS, or C/2019 Y4. When it was discovered on Dec. 28, 2019, it was quite faint, but...

May 15, 2020

Sun-watching spacecraft just might fly through tail of Comet ATLAS in rare encounter

Last month, Comet ATLAS shattered skywatchers' hopes of a brilliant display when it began crumbling — but scientists have spotted a new opportunity to study its rubble. That opportunity comes from the trajectory of Solar Orbiter, a partnership between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA). While the spacecraft was...

Jul 17, 2020

Don't miss Comet NEOWISE in the evening sky now. It won't be back for 6,800 years.

An amazing comet that thrilled early-morning stargazers earlier this month is now visible in the evening sky, and it's a sight you won't want to miss. After all, this comet won't be back for 6,800 years, NASA says. Comet NEOWISE can now be seen just after sunset for observers in...

Jul 18, 2020

Dazzling Comet NEOWISE could be an astronomical bonanza

Skywatchers aren't the only people excited about Comet NEOWISE. Astronomers are also buzzing about the icy wanderer, which observers under clear, dark skies in the Northern Hemisphere can currently see with the naked eye. The last comet to put on such an impressive show was Hale-Bopp all the way back...

Jul 21, 2020

Comet NEOWISE: 10 big questions (and answers) about the icy wanderer

See Comet NEOWISE? (Image credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Naval Research Lab/Parker Solar Probe/Brendan Gallagher)If you spot Comet NEOWISE, let us know! Send images and comments to [email protected] to share your views. Comet NEOWISE has is delighting skywatchers around the Northern Hemisphere. But what makes this comet so special? The comet made...

Jul 25, 2020

The curtain is about to come down on Comet NEOWISE

The brightest comet to appear in Northern Hemisphere skies in nearly a quarter of a century will soon be ending its run as a naked-eye object. Comet NEOWISE (aka C/2020 F3) was discovered on March 27 by astronomers during the NEOWISE mission, which used NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE)...

Sep 29, 2020

The 'rubber ducky' comet is glowing

The rubber ducky comet is glowing. But you can't see it. *That's because this cometary aurora shines in the far-ultraviolet range, a part of the electromagnetic spectrum with a higher frequency than any light human eyes can detect. Researchers discovered this first cometary aurora in data from comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, which...