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Comet
A comet is a small body in the solar system that orbits the Sun and (at least occasionally) exhibits a coma (or atmosphere) and/or a tail - both primarily from the effects of solar radiation upon the comet's nucleus, which itself is a minor body composed of rock, dust, and ices. Comets' orbits are constantly changing: their origins are in the outer solar system, and they have a propensity to be highly affected (or perturbed) by relatively close approaches to the major planets. Some are moved into sungrazing orbits that destroy the comets when they near the Sun, while others are thrown out of the solar system forever.
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Space & Time News
March 21, 2026
Mar. 20, 2026 A mysterious spike of platinum buried deep in Greenland’s ice has long fueled theories of a catastrophic comet or asteroid strike 12,800 years ago—possibly triggering a sudden return to icy conditions known as the Younger Dryas. But new research ...
Mar. 14, 2026 Mars didn’t always look like the barren world we see today. Over billions of years, the Sun’s solar wind stripped away much of its atmosphere, helping transform it from a warmer, wetter planet ...
Feb. 24, 2026 Scientists have proposed a surprising connection between solar flares and earthquakes. When solar activity disturbs the ionosphere, it may generate electric fields that penetrate fragile fracture zones in Earth’s crust. If a fault is already ...
Feb. 2, 2026 NASA’s Perseverance rover has just made history by driving across Mars using routes planned by artificial intelligence instead of human operators. A vision-capable AI analyzed the same images and terrain data normally used by rover planners, ...
Feb. 2, 2026 Hidden lava tunnels on the Moon and Mars could one day shelter human explorers, offering natural protection from radiation and space debris. A European research team has unveiled a bold new mission concept that uses three different robots working ...
Jan. 28, 2026 Low-Earth orbit is more crowded—and fragile—than it looks. Satellites constantly weave past each other, burning fuel and making dozens of evasive maneuvers every year just to stay safe. A major solar storm could disable navigation and ...
Jan. 19, 2026 Physicists have unveiled a new way to simulate a mysterious form of dark matter that can collide with itself but not with normal matter. This self-interacting dark matter may trigger a dramatic collapse inside dark matter halos, heating and ...
Jan. 18, 2026 When scientists sent bacteria-infecting viruses to the International Space Station, the microbes did not behave the same way they do on Earth. In microgravity, infections still occurred, but both viruses and bacteria evolved differently over time. ...
Jan. 8, 2026 A team of physicists has discovered a surprisingly simple way to build nuclear clocks using tiny amounts of rare thorium. By electroplating thorium onto steel, they achieved the same results as years of work with delicate crystals — but far more ...
Jan. 8, 2026 Nearly everything in the universe is made of mysterious dark matter and dark energy, yet we can’t see either of them directly. Scientists are developing detectors so sensitive they can spot particle interactions that might occur once in years or ...
Jan. 6, 2026 A distant pulsar’s radio signal flickers as it passes through space, much like stars twinkle in Earth’s atmosphere. By monitoring this effect for 10 months, researchers watched the pattern slowly evolve as gas, Earth, and the pulsar all moved. ...
Jan. 6, 2026 Mars looks familiar from afar, but surviving there means creating a protective oasis in a hostile world. Instead of shipping construction materials from Earth, researchers are exploring how to use Martian soil as the raw ingredient. Two tough ...
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Mar. 20, 2026 A nearby galaxy is behaving strangely—and now scientists know why. The Small Magellanic Cloud’s stars move in chaotic patterns because it slammed into its larger neighbor millions of years ago. ...
Mar. 18, 2026 Kepler-51d is a giant, ultra-light “super-puff” planet wrapped in an unusually thick haze that’s blocking scientists from seeing what it’s made of. Observations from JWST revealed that this ...
Mar. 17, 2026 Astronomers have identified a strange new kind of exoplanet that challenges how scientists classify worlds beyond our Solar System. The planet, L 98-59 d, appears to contain a vast ocean of molten ...
Mar. 17, 2026 A mysterious metal-rich asteroid called Psyche has been baffling scientists for over two centuries, and its true origin remains one of the biggest unanswered questions in planetary science. Is it the ...
Mar. 17, 2026 The James Webb Space Telescope has revealed new details in a bizarre nebula that looks like a brain floating in space. Formed by a dying star, the “Exposed Cranium” nebula shows layered gas and a ...
Mar. 16, 2026 Astronomers may have found an exciting new clue about dark energy—the mysterious force driving the universe’s accelerating expansion. They ...
Mar. 16, 2026 Scientists studying a mysterious effect called cosmic birefringence—a subtle twist in the polarization of the universe’s oldest light—have ...
Mar. 15, 2026 Astronomers have discovered the brightest fast radio burst ever detected and traced it to a nearby galaxy using a new network of CHIME Outrigger telescopes. The flash, nicknamed RBFLOAT, lasted only ...
Mar. 15, 2026 New research suggests Mars may have remained habitable much longer than scientists once thought. Ancient sand dunes in Gale Crater appear to have ...
Mar. 14, 2026 NASA’s Curiosity rover is investigating strange spiderweb-like ridges on Mars that may reveal a hidden chapter of the planet’s watery history. These “boxwork” formations likely formed when ...