Comet 108P/Ciffreo was spotted in 1985 hurtling through space alongside a strange blob of dust, and now astronomers have finally figured out where the blob came from
Space
17 February 2023
The Nordic Optical Telescope was used as part of the work Shutterstock/Ahmad Khal
Astronomers in 1985 spotted a peculiar comet that seemed to have a huge blob of dust travelling with it through space, and now we have finally figured out what it is. Understanding unusual objects like this could help us learn about how comets evolve and eventually fall apart.
Yoonyoung Kim at the Technical University of Braunschweig in Germany and her colleagues examined the comet, called Comet 108P/Ciffreo, using the Nordic Optical Telescope in Spain and the Hubble Space Telescope …