• Question: What throws a comet off course (in general)?

    Asked by maggierider to Alan on 11 Mar 2014.
    • Photo: Alan Fitzsimmons

      Alan Fitzsimmons answered on 11 Mar 2014:

      Most comets stay in pretty regular paths around the Sun. (We call the path an object follows its orbit).

      But they can be nudged slightly into a different path. Sometimes that is due to them passing close to a planet like Jupiter. Sometimes they do it to themselves, by jetting out large amount of water which slightly pushes them in the opposite direction.

      Som tv programmes and films show comets changing course because they hit something. But that is fiction and never happens.

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