Key facts
- Category
- Comets
- Object class
- Comet nucleus
- Mass
- ~20 billion metric tons
- Scale fact
- 8 kmmaximum extent
- Estimated age
- ~4.5 billion years
- Composition
- Water ice, dust, frozen volatiles
19P/Borrelly
8 kmmaximum extent
8.00km
Details
19P/Borrelly is the bowling-pin-shaped comet nucleus that NASA's Deep Space 1 probe imaged in 2001, the second comet ever seen up close. It has a dark, ridged surface and bright jets erupting from a smooth central region.
Deep Space 1 passed 2,171 kilometers from Borrelly in September 2001 after engineers recovered the spacecraft from a failed star tracker. Its images resolved an elongated, dark nucleus and showed that the main dust jet originated from a restricted region rather than uniformly across the surface. The encounter was an extended-mission result for a spacecraft designed primarily to test new technologies.
Links
- Preset views
- Wikipedia
- 19P/Borrelly on Wikipedia
- Universe journey
- Solar System
Size neighbors
Objects near 19P/Borrelly on the scale
On the logarithmic size axis, 19P/Borrelly falls between 9P/Tempel 1 and 52246 Donaldjohanson. Compared below with other objects classed as Comet nucleus.
Shared physical scale
8.41km
Sources
References for 19P/Borrelly
Measurements and descriptive context are compiled by the Scale of Space team from the references below. If you find an error, write to hello@scaleofspace.org.
- 19P/Borrelly on Wikipedia
- Visual reference: Wikimedia Commons (Deep Space 1 2001 / NASA / JPL, Public domain)
Continue with nearby objects or open the full scale.
About
Scale of Space is a scroll-based journey through the universe, placing objects on a single logarithmic scale so you can compare size across an unbroken range.
Guides explain selected parts of that range, while focused views filter the objects by subject.