Photo Gallery: Asteroids and Comets

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Comet NEAT

Photograph courtesy T. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage), Z. Levay and L. Frattare (Space Telescope Science Institute), and National Optical Astronomy Observatory/Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy/National Science Foundation

Comet C/2001 Q4, also known as NEAT, emits a blue-and-purple glow as it moves through the cosmos in May 2004. Its coma, or head, and a portion of its tail are visible in this shot, as are myriad stars. This image was taken by telescope from Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Arizona.

Comet Tempel 1

Photograph courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD

This image shows ejected material that was propelled into space when NASA's Deep Impact probe collided with comet Tempel 1 at 1:52 a.m. ET on July 4, 2005. It was taken by the spacecraft's medium-resolution camera 16 seconds after impact.

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Wild 2 Comet Surface

Photograph courtesy NASA/JPL

Seen here in a 2004 composite image, the intensely active surface of comet Wild 2 ejects dust and gas streams into space, leaving a trail millions of kilometers long. Other than the sun, Wild 2 is currently the most active planetary surface in our solar system, astronomers say.

Comet Hale-Bopp

Photograph courtesy H. A. Weaver (Applied Research Corp.), P. D. Feldman (The Johns Hopkins University), and NASA

The Hale-Bopp comet shines against a stellar backdrop in the constellation Sagittarius in this Hubble Space Telescope image. Discovered in 1995 by amateur astronomers Alan Hale in New Mexico and Thomas Bopp in Arizona, the extremely bright comet became visible to the naked eye the following year. It gradually faded from view, but astronomers predict that Hale-Bopp will be viewable with large telescopes until around 2020.

Ceres

Photograph courtesy NASA, ESA, J. Parker (Southwest Research Institute), P. Thomas (Cornell University), L. McFadden (University of Maryland, College Park), and M. Mutchler and Z. Levay (STScI)

The round shape of Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, suggests that its interior is layered like Earth's. First classified as an asteroid, Ceres was recently also labeled a dwarf planet. It has a diameter of about 590 miles (950 kilometers) and it contains about a third of the asteroid belt's total mass.

Meteor Crater, Arizona

Photograph courtesy D. Roddy (U.S. Geological Survey), Lunar and Planetary Institute

One of the youngest and best-preserved impact craters on Earth, Meteor Crater formed about 50,000 years ago when a 100-foot-wide (30-meter-wide) meteor weighing 100,000 tons slammed into the Arizona desert at an estimated 12 miles (20 kilometers) a second. The resulting explosion exceeded the combined force of today's nuclear arsenals and created a 0.7-mile-wide (1.1-kilometer-wide), 650-foot-deep (200-meter-deep) crater.

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Shoemaker-Levy 9 Comet

Photograph courtesy Dr. H. A. Weaver and Mr. T. E. Smith, STScI/NASA

This enlargement of a 1993 Hubble Space Telescope image shows the brightest nuclei in a string of approximately 20 objects that comprise Comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9 as it hurtled toward a July I994 collision with the giant planet Jupiter. Shoemaker-Levy 9 was the first comet discovered to be orbiting a planet, Jupiter, instead of the sun.

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Comet Impacts on Jupiter

Photograph courtesy Hubble Space Telescope Comet Team

Fragments of comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9 struck Jupiter in July 1994, leaving the impacts visible in this ultraviolet image. The spots appear dark because of the large quantities of dust, which absorbs sunlight, being deposited in the planet's stratosphere.

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Comet Tempel 1

Photograph courtesy NASA, ESA, P. Feldman (Johns Hopkins University) and H. Weaver (Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory)

Light reflects from the nucleus of the Tempel 1 comet in this Hubble Space Telescope image taken in 2005. The potato-shaped nucleus, which appears starlike because it's too small for Hubble to resolve, is 8.7 miles (14 kilometers) wide and 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) long.

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Dust Stream From Comet Tempel 1

Photograph courtesy NASA, ESA, P. Feldman (Johns Hopkins University) and H. Weaver (Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory)

A new jet of dust streams from the icy nucleus of the Tempel 1 comet, caught in this Hubble Space Telescope image. The jet extends about 1,400 miles (2,200 kilometers)—roughly half the distance across the U.S.—in the direction of the sun. Comets frequently show outbursts of activity, but astronomers still don't know exactly why they occur.