Comet
Halley's Comet returns about every 76 years — its next visit is in 2061.
A comet is a small body of ice and dust whose nucleus releases gas and grows a tail as it nears the Sun. The most famous, Halley's Comet (1P/Halley), has a nucleus about 15 by 8 km; at its 1986 perihelion it came within 0.59 AU of the Sun and ESA's Giotto probe took the first close-up images of a comet nucleus. It returns about every 76 years, with the next visit predicted for 2061.
Observed data
- Diameter
- 11 km
- Orbital period
- 27,759 days
Observed by
- Giotto
- Vega 1/2
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