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COMET
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I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
(astronomy) a relatively small extraterrestrial body consisting of a frozen mass that travels around the sun in a highly elliptical orbit
Classified under:
Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)
Hypernyms ("comet" is a kind of...):
estraterrestrial body; extraterrestrial object (a natural object existing outside the earth and outside the earth's atmosphere)
Meronyms (parts of "comet"):
coma ((astronomy) the luminous cloud of particles surrounding the frozen nucleus of a comet; forms as the comet approaches the sun and is warmed)
nucleus ((astronomy) the center of the head of a comet; consists of small solid particles of ice and frozen gas that vaporizes on approaching the sun to form the coma and tail)
Domain category:
astronomy; uranology (the branch of physics that studies celestial bodies and the universe as a whole)
Derivation:
cometary; cometic (of or relating to or resembling a comet)
Context examples:
This first sighting of phosphorus monoxide on a comet helps astronomers draw a connection between star-forming regions, where the molecule is created, all the way to Earth.
(Astronomers Reveal Interstellar Thread of One of Life’s Building Blocks, ESO)
The comet is currently 260 million miles (420 million kilometers) from the Sun and will reach its closest point, or perihelion, on Dec. 8, 2019, at a distance of about 190 million miles (300 million kilometers).
(Newly Discovered Comet Is Likely Interstellar Visitor, NASA)
As Rosetta approaches the comet (now less than 9,000 km away), the form of the nucleus is coming into focus, and it is extraordinary.
(Rosetta Comet May Be a Contact Binary, NASA)
Rosetta's lander will obtain the first images taken from a comet's surface and will provide the first analysis of a comet's composition by drilling into the surface.
(Rosetta closing in on comet, NASA)
When they meet an acquaintance in the morning, the first question is about the sun’s health, how he looked at his setting and rising, and what hopes they have to avoid the stroke of the approaching comet.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
After searching for this molecule in star-forming regions with ALMA, the European team moved on to a Solar System object: the now-famous comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko.
(Astronomers Reveal Interstellar Thread of One of Life’s Building Blocks, ESO)
The comet's current velocity is high, about 93,000 mph (150,000 kph), which is well above the typical velocities of objects orbiting the Sun at that distance.
(Newly Discovered Comet Is Likely Interstellar Visitor, NASA)
This week's images of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko reveal an irregular shape.
(Rosetta Comet May Be a Contact Binary, NASA)
Observations will help scientists learn more about the origin and evolution of our solar system and the role comets may have played in seeding Earth with water, and perhaps even life.
(Rosetta closing in on comet, NASA)
Their apprehensions arise from several changes they dread in the celestial bodies: for instance, that the earth, by the continual approaches of the sun towards it, must, in course of time, be absorbed, or swallowed up; that the face of the sun, will, by degrees, be encrusted with its own effluvia, and give no more light to the world; that the earth very narrowly escaped a brush from the tail of the last comet, which would have infallibly reduced it to ashes; and that the next, which they have calculated for one-and-thirty years hence, will probably destroy us.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
