Comet Hale-Bopp

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

The path of Comet Hale-Bopp 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, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune; it crosses the paths of the Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Orbit from NASA/JPL Small-Body Database.

Kind: Comet
Distance: 177.4 au from the Sun on average
Once round: 2,364 years
Path: a long oval (eccentricity 0.995), tilted 89.3°
Size: 60 km across

One of the brightest comets of the last century, visible to the naked eye for a year and a half around 1997.

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.