The gas particles eventually become electrically charged, forming The tiny dust particlesĪre pushed away from the Sun by the pressure of sunlight, forming a dust Rise in temperature makes them release gas and dust. When their orbits bring them close to the Sun, the They are typically a few kilometres across, and are composed of a They mentioned that a comet couldĬomet nuclei are small bodies that were formed when our solar system was

Reported in 1998 by another team of scientists led by Dr Pete Riley, then of Noticed was a dramatic drop in the number of protons at Ulysses, which was Unusual things happened to the solar wind. Ulysses was 560 million km (347 million miles) from the Sun, when decidedly Wind which flows outwards from the Sun past the spacecraft. It makesĬontinuous measurements of the stream of charged particles called the solar The joint European Space Agency-NASA spacecraft Ulysses was launched inġ990, and is in an orbit taking it over the poles of the Sun. The discovery is reported in the journal 'Nature' on April 6, 2000. They then found that the tail belonged to Comet Hyakutake. Their analysis of the magnetic field data returned from Ulysses on led them to conclude that Ulysses had passed through a comet's tail on that date. Photo: Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council impression by David A. The planets Mercury, Venus and Earth can be seen to the right of the Sun. The tail, omposed of gases released from the comet's icy nucleus, can be seen stretching for over 570 kilometers. Travelling at up to 750 kilometers per second, the tail has taken 8 days to journey from the comet's head to Ulysses, carried by the solar wind flowing from the Sun. The view from the Ulysses spacecraft as Comet Hyakutake's ion tail rushes towards it, at a point 560 million kilometers from the Sun and 550 million kilometers from the Earth. Together with Dr Tim Horbury of Queen Mary and Westfield College, LondonĪnalysed 1996 data from the Ulysses spacecraft. Geraint Jones and Professor Andre Balogh of Imperial College, London, At 570 million km (360 million miles) itīeat the previous claimed record of 330 million km (206 million miles) heldīy the Great March Comet of 1843. Ulysses space probe makes surprise trip into comet's tailĬomet Hyakutake, a bright comet seen by many people in 1996, developed the Spaceflight Now | Breaking News | Ulysses space probe makes surprise trip into comet's tail