Suggested Searches

All About Comets Animation

Image of Comet Halley
In 1986, the European spacecraft Giotto became one of the first spacecraft to encounter and photograph the nucleus of a comet, passing and imaging Halley's nucleus as it receded from the Sun.
Levels
  • Intermediate (6-8)
  • Advanced (9-12+)
Material Type
  • Animation/Visualization
  • Article/Informative Text
Heliophysics Big Ideas
  • Big Idea 1.1 – The Sun is really big…
  • Big Idea 2.2 – The Sun defines the space…
NGSS
  • ESS1 - Earth's Place in the Universe
  • PS1 - Matter and its Interactions
  • PS2 - Motion and Stability: Forces and Interactions
  • PS3 - Energy
Heliophysics Topics
  • Corona
  • Coronal Mass Ejection
  • Energy
  • Heliosphere
  • Interstellar Space
  • Solar System
  • Solar Flare
  • Sun
Heliophysics Missions
  • PUNCH
  • Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO)
  • Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO)
  • STEREO A & B
Material Cost per Learner Free
Language English

A page from NASA's Solar System Exploration Directorate website which gives an overview of comets. The page includes links to pages about several well-known comets and provides details about them.

Comets are cosmic snowballs of frozen gases, rock, and dust that orbit the Sun. When frozen, they are the size of a small town. When a comet's orbit brings it close to the Sun, it heats up and spews dust and gases into a giant glowing head larger than most planets. The dust and gases form a tail that stretches away from the Sun for millions of miles. There are likely billions of comets orbiting our Sun in the Kuiper Belt and even more distant Oort Cloud. They are important to heliophysicists because the study of cometary tails has helped us learn about how the solar wind works, and how solar radiation affects planetary objects over time.

Find the resource at this link. ↗