Comet
The most famous periodic comet, visible from Earth roughly every 76 years.
| Type | Comet |
|---|---|
| Distance from the Sun | 17.80 AU |
| Diameter | 11 km |
| Mass | 2.20 × 10¹⁴ kg |
| Temperature | -207°C |
| Orbital period | 27,740 days |
| Rotation period | 52.8 hours |
| Apparent magnitude | 2.4 |
| Redshift | 0 |
| Discovered | 1705 |
Comets are icy bodies that vaporise as they near the Sun, and it's that boiling-off gas and dust, not the comet itself, that forms the tail.
At 11 km across, Halley's Comet is less than a thousandth of the diameter of Earth.
Its mass is less than a thousandth of the mass of Earth.
It keeps an average distance of 17.8 AU from the Sun, so sunlight takes 2.5 hours to reach it.
A single orbit takes 76 years.
An average temperature of 66 K works out at -207 degrees Celsius, colder than the 15 degrees Earth averages.
It has been on record since 1705.
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