This infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows the broken Comet 73P/Schwassman-Wachm ann 3 skimming along a trail of debris left during its multiple trips around the sun. The flame-like objects are the comet's fragments and their tails, while the dusty comet trail is the line bridging the fragments.
The detailed tail photograph of Halley's Comet was obtained by Jet Propulsion Laboratory astronomer Eleanor Helin with the 48-inch Schmidt telescope at Caltech's Palomar Observatory. It shows for the first time the full range of features characteristic of a well-developed ion tail. The features include tail rays, condensations, a kink, a general helical structure (which shows only as a waviness on the print) and, perhaps, a disconnection event in which a part of the ion tail separates and the comet begins to develop a new tail.
This Hubble photo shows the comet LINEAR in 1999.
Comet Hyakutake, as imaged by the C3 coronagraph of the Naval Research Laboratory's LASCO instrument on the SOHO spacecraft is seen in 1996. This picture shows the comet to the north of the Sun. The bright region near the Sun is a coronal mass ejection.
This true-color image of Comet C/2002 V1 (NEAT), was obtained in January 2003. C/2002 V1 (NEAT) was one of the brightest comets seen from Earth in a century.
The ground-based image of Comet 17P/Holmes was taken November 1, 2007, by astrophotographer Alan Dyer. The observations were made in southern Alberta, Canada.
This artist's concept illustrates a comet being torn to shreds around a dead star, or white dwarf, called G29-38. NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope observed a cloud of dust around this white dwarf that may have been generated from this type of comet disruption. The findings suggest that a host of other comet survivors may still orbit in this long-dead solar system.
This artist's impression shows the Ulysses spacecraft passing through the tail of comet Hyakutake. Ulysses unexpectedly encountered the tail of comet Hyakutake in May 1996. At the time, Hyakutake's nucleus was close to the Sun - more than 326,000,000 miles away. The measurement was the longest comet tail ever recorded. The discovery revealed comet tails - streams of ions, gas and dust extending away from the Sun - were much longer than previously believed.
NASA's Deep Impact mission launched a probe to the comet 9P/Tempel, impacting the comet to release debris from its interior in an attempt to find out more about the body's composition. This artist's concept gives us a look at the moment of impact and the forming of the crater.
This image of comet C/2001 Q4 (NEAT) was taken at the WIYN 0.9-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Ariz., on May 7, 2004. The image was captured with the Mosaic I camera, which has a one-square degree field of view, or about five times the size of the Moon. Even with this large field, only the comet's coma and the inner portion of its tail are visible.
This image depicts the proposed Deep Space 4/Champollion lander return module lifting off from the nucleus of comet Tempel 1 and ascending toward the carrier vehicle (upper left corner). This mission would have been the first-ever landing on and direct investigation of a cometary nucleus. Seen in the center of this image is the lander surface module, which carries the science instruments. The mission was cancelled in 1996 due to a lack of funding.
This depiction of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 impacting Jupiter is shown from several perspectives. For visual appeal, most of the large cometary fragments are shown close to one another in this image. At the time of Jupiter impact, the fragments will be separated from one another by several times the distances shown.
The Araona Crater (also known as the Iturralde Structure) is a suspected crater from an impactor which struck northern Bolivia approximately 20,000 years ago. The feature is believed to have been caused by a short period comet striking at 44 miles per second and splattering into the muddy alluvial flood plain in the Lower Amazon jungle. The impact created a circular depression which is now roughly 5 miles across and 10 feet deep.
This image of Comet Hale-Bopp was taken by Jim Young of JPL's Table Mountain Observatory, approximately 30 miles east of Los Angeles in Wrightwood, CA, on March 7, 1997. It was taken with a 135mm telephoto lens mounted on a 35mm camera at an exposure of four minutes. The bright head of the comet, called the coma, is seen at the bottom of this image, and is pointed toward the Sun. The coma is composed of dust and gas, masking the solid nucleus of the comet made up of rock, dust and ice.
Comet Lovejoy's unlikely trip close to the sun's surface has given scientists a wealth of new information about our sun.
This was not a tale that should have had a happy ending. When Comet Lovejoy sped into the Sun’s corona in 2011, scientists did not expect the daredevil to survive. Astronomers had already tracked 2,000 similar comets making the same inadvisable trip. None had made it, all melting into the sun’s super-hot glow.
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