Comet Halley

Comet Halley as seen by ESA’s Giotto spacecraft in 1986, the last time the comet visited the inner Solar System. Giotto was ESA’s first deep mission, and obtained the first close-up images of a comet. This image was taken from a distance of about 2000 km from Comet Halley. The Sun is located towards the left of the image, provoking outbursts of gas and dust from the comet’s nucleus.

Photo credit: ESA/MPS

Fab Five

This montage shows the only five comets imaged up close with spacecraft. The comets vary in shape and size. Comet Hartley 2 is by far the smallest and the most active of small comets. This jet activity can be seen extending from the comet's surface and into its outer shell of gas and dust, or coma. This is first time scientists have been able to link jets to the details of the surface.

Photo credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD

Note: The five visited comets and the spacecraft that visited them are, as shown counter-clockwise in the image, comets 9P/Tempel 1 (Deep Impact), 19P/Borrelly (Deep Space 1), 81P/Wild (Wild 2) (Stardust), 103P/Hartley 2 (Deep Impact/EPOXI), and 1P/Halley (Giotto).

Update: For another photo comparing the sizes of Comets Hartley 2 and Tempel 1, see PIA13629: Tempel 1 and Hartley 2.