A strange class of space rock known as a "dark comet" has qualities of both asteroids and comets — and the hard-to-spot objects may pose a larger threat to Earth than we thought, according to ...

Nearly invisible “dark comets” may have been responsible for bringing much of the water found on Earth to our planet ages ago. However, they could also pose a very terrible threat to Earth ...

A recent study suggested that nearly 60% of all near-Earth objects are dark comets that may have been a part of much larger bodies in the main asteroid belt, a region of the solar system that lies ...

Scientists first suspected the existence of dark comets in a March 2016 study when they noted that the trajectory of asteroid 2003 RM had moved slightly from its expected orbit, which could not be ...

Dark comets were first revealed in 2023, when a team led by Darryl Seligman of Cornell University identified six of them based on their anomalous motions.. Asteroids follow orbits dictated by the ...

The study examined seven dark comets and estimates that between 0.5 and 60% of all near-Earth objects could be dark comets, which do not have comae but do have nongravitational accelerations.

The team estimates that between 0.5 and 60 percent of near-Earth objects could be dark comets. "These pieces will also have ice on them, so they will also spin out faster and faster until they ...

Inner dark comets are smaller – typically 1,000 feet in size – and on circular orbits close to the Earth. Outer dark comets, shown in red, have longer orbits than inner dark comets, shown in gray.

This is what a recent study published in Icarus hopes to address as a team of international researchers investigated the origins of dark comets and their evolution throughout the history of the solar ...

A strange class of space rock known as a "dark comet" has qualities of both asteroids and comets — and the hard-to-spot objects may pose a larger threat to Earth than we thought, according to new ...