Halley's comet - In 1705 Edmond Halley, using Newton's laws of motion, predicted that the comet, which was observed in 1531, 1607 and 1682 years, should return in 1758 (which, alas, was after his death). Comet really returned, as was predicted, and was later named in his honor.

The average period of circulation of Halley's comet around the Sun is equal to 76 years. Last its passage through the perihelion was observed in February 1986.

The nucleus of Halley's comet has a size of approximately 16x8x8 kilometers. Contrary to expectations, it is very dark: its albedo is only 0.03, which makes it even darker than coal. Thus, the nucleus of Halley's comet is one of the darkest objects in the Solar system.

The density of the nucleus of comet Halley is very low, only about 0.1 grams per a cubic. see, that shows that it has a porous structure, since it consists mainly of dust and ice.

Halley's comet will come back into the inner Solar system next time in 2061 year.

The Comet Hyakutake

Without exaggeration we can say that the end of our century is marked increased interest in cometary research. In 1995 the attention of astronomers around the world were focused on the comet shoemaker-levy, broken into many pieces and gave rise to huge disturbances in the atmosphere of Jupiter after their fall on this planet. The first months of 1996 was marked by the opening of the new comet is a comet Hyakutake that for several weeks he was one of the brightest objects in the sky.

Unlike such well-known comets, like a comet Charles XII or Halley's comet, comet Hyakutake was opened in January 1996, when it was removed from the Earth at a distance of 300 million km Preliminary data do not exclude the possibility that a previous visit this comets in the solar system was 10-20 thousand years ago, but the final answer requires thorough research.

One of the main features of the comet Hyakutake is a great inclination of its orbit to the Ecliptic plane. It made for an extremely good conditions for its observations. As it approaches the Earth brightness of the comet increased continuously and on March 23, the comet could be seen by the naked eye. From 23 to 27 March 1996, she quickly moved from the constellation of Bootes in the constellation URSA major and further on to the North star.

At a minimum distance of 17 million km from Earth, the comet Hyakutake was 25.03.96, moving with a speed of 50 km/sec.

For the period of 2001 it is removed from the Sun.

The remains of the comet Ikeya-Seki

In October 1965, comet Ikeya-Seki was only 450 thousand kilometers from the Sun. Under the influence of hard solar radiation icy nucleus of comet was gone and lost the components of its gas and dust. During the passage of the perihelion (closest to the Sun point of the orbit), the comet was so bright that it could be observed the day when the Sun was hidden by some structure, or even just closed hand.

Comet Ikeya-Seki is a member of the family of comets Kreutz sungrazers, named after the German astronomer, thoroughly investigating this family of comets in the nineteenth century. This comet in its perihelion are less than 50000 miles above the photosphere of the Sun. Most of them completely destroyed. But few of them, like the comet Ikeya-Seki, are very bright objects.

"For each century was observed 2 or 3 really bright, like a comet Ikeya-Seki, object," said Brian Marsden of the Harvard center for astrophysics. "The majority of them are fragments of a giant comet, which was destroyed at least 2000 years ago.

Probably, a similar phenomenon was observed by the Greek astronomer Ephorus in 372 BC. Ephorus reports that the comet broke up into two parts."

The size of the nucleus of comet was a few km, and now you can see the remains of the several meters in size when approaching the photosphere of the Sun is bright flash on short periods of time and disappear in it forever. Using the Internet, professional astronomers and Amateur astronomers can observe these phenomena are due to the coronagraph installed on Board SOHO.

The sec is a device that blocks the glare from the Sun so that you can see the Sun's corona surrounding the stars and planets. On Board SOHO has two coronagraph, one with a field of view 3 C ('C2" the sec) and the other with a field review 16 (C (C3" the sec). SOHO is 1.5 million kilometers from Earth in the direction of the Sun. To the left is a photo taken using a coronagraph C2 29 April 2000. The circle in the center indicates the true size of the Sun.

All comets are discovered using images SOHO, called "comet SOHO" and are accompanied by a number indicating the order of opening. This differs from the traditional designation of the newly discovered the names of comets. The most recent was the comet SOHO-143, open 4 July 2000. The official designation of the International Astronomical Union for this comet - SOHO-143 - C/1998 K15, as the actual images were obtained in 1998, and K15 indicates that it was the fifteenth comet, found during the second half of may.

The comet Set g

The brightest comet of the century - her head was visible during the day. The comet was 6 tails. Maybe it is the result of periodic emissions from the kernel.

Comet Encke

Observed from 1786 I. Encke calculated the orbit of this comet with the smallest period of circulation - 3,3, the Tunguska meteorite (1908), probably, was the chip its core. Recent rapprochement was in 2000, and another closer to the Sun will take place in 2004. It is not excluded that this is the last of convergence that can be observed, because the remaining mass of the nucleus is very small.

The comet of 1811

Today it remains the large head: its volume in 6-8 times greater than the Sun.

Comet Donati 1858

Beautiful comet of recent centuries. She is well expressed and plasma and dust tails. The comet will be back in the 39-th century.

Large September comet of 1882

The brightest comet of the century, it simultaneously noticed by many. The maximum Shine as 60 full moons, and the day was visible in sunlight. This is one of the "kebusy" comets. She flew in pluralise of the Sun from the surface at a speed of 480 km/S. the Core passed in front of the disk of the Sun, but because of the small size was not seen; after the close approach to the Sun broke up into two parts. Fragments of the comet will come back around 2650 g

Comet West 1976

One of the most beautiful comets century. Had the long, broad tail resembling a cloud in the morning Sun. Head shined as Venus. The comet fell apart.

Comet Chumacero-Levy 9

In July 1992, the comet was held in 15 km. from the cloud cover of Jupiter. As a result, the kernel was crushed by 17 pieces, spanning 200 thousand km. In this form comet and was opened on observatorii mount Palomar Caroline and Eugene Sumatrae (best professional fishers comets) and David levy. The comet would not around the Sun, and around Jupiter with a period of 2 years. During the next rapprochement with Jupiter in July 1994, all the fragments crashed into the atmosphere with a speed of 64 km/S. and aroused strong indignation of the cloud cover. The decline was predicted by astronomers, and was observed from the Ground and from space.