Comet Tempel 1

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

The path of Comet Tempel 1 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 and Mars. Orbit from NASA/JPL Small-Body Database.

Kind: Comet
Distance: 3.146 au from the Sun on average
Once round: 5.581 years
Path: a long oval (eccentricity 0.51), tilted 10.5°
Size: 6 km across

NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft fired a block of copper into it in 2005 to see what was underneath.

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.