Halley's comet

we all know about the mysterious Halley's comet, which makes an appearance in the night sky every 75 years or so well in traditional fashion I'm gonna present some facts on it.

What even is a Comet?

A Comet is a huge snowball made up of frozen gases(primarily ammonia-Nh3, Water-H2O and Carbon-C), rocks and dust. They orbit celestial objects in concentric circular orbits. Comets are distinguishable for the long trail they leave behind as they're hurled across the vast emptiness of space. They're also known as dirty snowballs or dirty iceballs. Most comets are small, their solid part being 60km long.

It's composed of a solid nucleus, a thin atmosphere surrounding the comet called Coma and the recognisable& iconic tail/trail the comet leaves behind as it drifts. It also can have jet streams coming out of it and bow shocks when the solar wind in the ionosphere of the atmosphere ionises the gases coming out of the comet.

Halley's Comet

Now, back to business, the Halley's Comet is one such Comet with an orbital period <200 years(it can finish an orbit in less than 200 years), making it a short period Comet. It can be observed with naked eyes(no vision aid needed to observe it!).

 It is a relatively tiny Comet, it extends up to the length of 15 km, 8 km in breadth and thickness. It resembles a peanut in shape, its mass is around 2.2x10^4.

 It orbits the Sun, its closest point to the Sun(Aphelion) is between the orbits of Venus and Mercury and the farthest point(Perihelion) is near the orbit of Pluto. 

It takes around 75 years to finish a revolution and 7.4 days to complete a rotation of itself. The comet has been orbiting the Sun for the last 20,000(2x10^4) years. The Comet has been recognized by our ancestors since 437 Bc that's about 2457 years!! 

However, it wasn't recognized as something special till Edmund Halley, a British physicist predicted that the Comet would return in 1758 in 1705.  

The Comet last appeared on Earth in 1986 and is predicted to return and make an appearance back in 2061.

^{Thanks for reading through my blog, I hope you found it interesting and fun!}

^Sources

^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halley%27s_Comet}

^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmond_Halley}

^{https://www.space.com/19878-halleys-comet.html}

^{https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/asteroids-comets-and-meteors/comets/1p-halley/in-depth/}

^{https://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/sights-to-see.html}