Comet Hale-Bopp
the great comet of 1997 · C/1995 O1
52 AU from Earth
Found in July 1995 by Alan Hale and Thomas Bopp, it became one of the brightest comets of the last century, visible to the naked eye for about 18 months, a record. Its nucleus is about 60 km across, several times bigger than most.
- shown as on 1 April 1997, at its closest to the Sun (0.91 AU)
- now 51.3 AU out, dark and frozen · back in about 2,500 years
Numbers that change with time are from 8 November 2026.
open Comet Hale-Bopp in the atlas ›- kind
- comet or meteor shower
- distance
- 51.3 AU from the Sun
- orbits
- the Sun
More comets & meteors
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- Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 the comet that hit Jupiter in July 1994
- Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko Rosetta's comet
- the Perseids meteor shower in August