Comet Borrelly facts for kids
Comet Borrelly usually refers to a special space object called 19P/Borrelly. This comet was discovered by a French astronomer named Alphonse Borrelly in 1904. It's one of the most famous comets because a spacecraft visited it!
Contents
What is 19P/Borrelly?
19P/Borrelly is a type of comet called a "periodic comet." This means it travels around the Sun on a regular path. It comes back to our part of the solar system every few years.
How Often Does it Visit?
This comet takes about 6.8 years to complete one trip around the Sun. So, we get to see it relatively often compared to other comets. Each time it gets close to the Sun, it brightens up.
What Does it Look Like?
Like all comets, 19P/Borrelly has a few main parts. It has a solid center called the nucleus. This nucleus is made of ice, dust, and rocks. As the comet gets closer to the Sun, the ice turns into gas. This gas and dust form a huge cloud around the nucleus called the coma. The coma can be much bigger than Earth!
The Comet's Tail
The Sun's energy and solar wind push the gas and dust away from the coma. This creates one or more long tails that stretch for millions of miles. Comets often have two tails: a dust tail and an ion (gas) tail. The tails always point away from the Sun.
Deep Space 1 Mission
One of the most exciting things about 19P/Borrelly is that a NASA spacecraft flew past it! In 2001, the Deep Space 1 probe made a close flyby of the comet. This mission took amazing pictures of the comet's nucleus.
What Did Deep Space 1 Discover?
The pictures from Deep Space 1 showed that the nucleus of 19P/Borrelly is shaped like a bowling pin. It's about 8 kilometers (5 miles) long. The spacecraft also found that the comet's surface is very dark. It's one of the darkest objects in the solar system! This darkness is caused by a crust of dust.
Jets of Gas and Dust
Deep Space 1 also saw bright jets of gas and dust shooting out from the nucleus. These jets are like geysers erupting from the comet. They happen when the ice inside the nucleus turns directly into gas. These jets are what create the coma and the tails we see.
Other Comets Named Borrelly
While 19P/Borrelly is the most famous, the name "Comet Borrelly" can sometimes refer to other comets. Alphonse Borrelly discovered several other comets during his career. These include long-period comets, which take hundreds or even thousands of years to orbit the Sun.
- Some of these other comets are:
- C/1873 Q1
- C/1874 O1
- C/1874 X1
- C/1877 C1
- C/1889 X1
- C/1903 M1
- C/1912 V1
Sometimes, "Comet Borrelly" might also be part of a name for a comet discovered by Borrelly and another astronomer, like C/1900 O1, Comet Borrelly-Brooks, or C/1909 L1, Comet Borrelly-Daniel.
See also
In Spanish: 19P/Borrelly para niños
