Halley's Comet
periodic comet · returns every 76 years
35 AU from Earth
A dirty snowball about 15 km long on a 76-year orbit. Near the Sun it grows a glowing coma and two tails: curved dust and straight blue gas, pushed away from the Sun. It was last close in 1986 and returns in 2061.
- 34.9 AU from the Sun: frozen, dark and tailless out here
- it comes back in 2061 (set the time machine to see its tails)
Numbers that change with time are from 8 November 2026.
open Halley's Comet in the atlas ›- kind
- comet or meteor shower
- distance
- 34.9 AU from the Sun
- orbits
- the Sun
More comets & meteors
- Comet Hale-Bopp the great comet of 1997
- 'Oumuamua the first interstellar object
- Comet NEOWISE the bright comet of July 2020
- 3I/ATLAS the third interstellar object
- Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS the bright comet of October 2024
- 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