Comet Tails, Comas and Nuclei, Oh My | Space Wallpaper

Comet 67P hurtles through space releasing bits of itself along the way through its tails and coma. (Image credit: ESA / Rosetta / MPS for OSIRIS Team; MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA )

Comet 67p/Churyumov-Gerasimenko — Comet CG or Comet 67P for short — streaks through space at 135,000 km/h (38 km/s; 84,000 mph), orbiting around the Sun sometimes further than Mars and sometimes as close as Earth. The ESA's Rosetta spacecraft and its Philae lander gathered data and images on the comet nucleus and beamed it back to Earth. The jets seen materializing off Comet CG are the clearest images of the phenomenon to date and scientists are actively researching to understand how the tails, coma and jets come to be. [Learn more about Comet 67P.]

Wallpapers

Standard
800x600
1024x768
1280x1024
1600x1200
Wide
1280x800
1440x900
1680x1050
1920x1200

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: community@space.com.

Space.com is the premier source of space exploration, innovation and astronomy news, chronicling (and celebrating) humanity's ongoing expansion across the final frontier. Originally founded in 1999, Space.com is, and always has been, the passion of writers and editors who are space fans and also trained journalists. Our current news team consists of Editor-in-Chief Tariq Malik; Editor Hanneke Weitering, Senior Space Writer Mike Wall; Senior Writer Meghan Bartels; Senior Writer Chelsea Gohd, Senior Writer Tereza Pultarova and Staff Writer Alexander Cox, focusing on e-commerce. Senior Producer Steve Spaleta oversees our space videos, with Diana Whitcroft as our Social Media Editor.