Comets

A strange object recently discovered in our solar system has been confirmed to be interstellar in origin, and it now has an official name: 2I/Borisov.

Images returned by the Rosetta mission show dramatic evidence of collapsing cliffs and bouncing boulders on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Astronomers have sighted a comet that could be the second interstellar object ever detected.

Images sent back by ESA's Rosetta probe show that it wasn't only thing orbiting comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (67P/C-G). A comparison of images taken four years ago when the comet was closest to the Sun shows a piece of debris about 4 m (13 ft) in diameter circling 67P/C-G like a mini-moon.

It’s been suggested in the past that life could hitch a ride on asteroids or comets to jump from world to world – a process known as panspermia. Now, a Harvard team has calculated just how likely that scenario would be throughout the Milky Way. In short: extremely.

Astronomers have discovered a weird star system that appears to be dimming completely at random, and none of the usual explanations seem to fit.

ESA has given the green light to launch a mission designed to make the first flyby of a comet visiting the inner solar system for the first time. The "Comet Interceptor" mission will be set in a standby orbit, where it will wait for the discovery of an incoming comet to intercept.

Earth is a famously wet planet, but where all that water came from in the first place remains a mystery. New observations of a comet that whizzed by Earth a few months ago show that it contains “ocean-like” water – and this may apply to other previously-dismissed comets too.

Scientists have discovered a tiny fragment of a comet in a meteorite. The bulk of the rock itself was once an asteroid, but when the team cracked it open and analyzed the inside, they found that the growing asteroid must have swept up the seed of a comet billions of years ago.

The comet 46P/Wirtanen is set to make a close approach to Earth this weekend, and may even be bright enough to be seen by the naked eye. At its closest, 46P will pass a mere 7.2 million miles (11.7 million km) from our planet, making it the 10th closest comet encounter in the modern era.

NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) did a bit of limbering up before commencing its science operations on July 25, 2018. The unmanned space telescope demonstrated what it could do by snapping a series of images capturing the motion of a comet over the course of 17 hours.​​

‘Oumuamua is the first interstellar visitor ever detected passing through our Solar System, and while it was originally classed as an asteroid after its discovery, astronomers have now updated the label. ‘Oumuamua, it turns out, is a comet after all, but it’s unlike any other known comet.