Comet 67P

Outline The numbers here are measured. The rest of this page is being written.

The path of Comet 67P round the Sun, seen from above and drawn to scale, with the white dot at its nearest point. The faint rings are the paths of Mercury, Venus, the Earth, Mars and Jupiter; it crosses the paths of Mars and Jupiter. Orbit from NASA/JPL Small-Body Database.

Kind: Comet
Distance: 3.462 au from the Sun on average
Once round: 6.442 years
Path: a long oval (eccentricity 0.641), tilted 7.04°
Size: 3.4 km across

In full, Churyumov-Gerasimenko, after the two astronomers who found it. The European spacecraft Rosetta orbited it for two years from 2014 and set a lander, Philae, on it.

The Sun On the atlas In 3D

Still being written

Its tail and its head
Its path round the Sun
How it was found
Spacecraft that have visited
When to see it

Sources: NASA/JPL Small-Body Database.