Comets, Meteors & Asteroids

Comets, Meteors, and Asteroids are numerous and varied. Much attention has been directed to finding and cataloging all of this cosmic space debris. Small objects hit our upper atmosphere and fall to Earth quite frequently and the effects are generally benign. However, with relative velocities of up to 72 kilometers per second, such objects need not be large for the effects to become much more devastating.

Information served from this page will tell you much much more about the threat of impacts, the Spaceguard Survey which monitora near-Earth and Earth-orbit crossing objects.

Jupiter has perhaps suffered the strongest and most violent cometary impact in recent solar system history. This is perhaps the most comprehensive single site on the comet impact. Highlights include general information, images of the impact, computer simulations of projected impact effects, and movies of the impacts.

Features include recent news and observations about visible comets currently gracing our skies, images of comets, light curves, ephemerides for current comets, definitions of comet related terminology, and links to other sources of information about comets. There is also a good section on the outgoing comet Hale-Bopp, written for the non-astronomer. Hale-Bopp ismade its closest approach to the Sun in April - May 1997.

This site provides up-to-date information on comets and meteor showers, including introductory information, calendars of known and projected events, a glossary of meteor and cometary terms, as well as some miscellaneous information.

webmaster: Laura Davies
Updated: 08.28.05