Physical Size
A scroll-driven journey through the scale of the universe, from subatomic structures to the largest known cosmic systems.
103P/Hartley 2
81P/Wild (Wild 2)
Comet nucleus
103P/Hartley 2
A tiny peanut-shaped comet spewing icy chunks, seen up close by EPOXI.
103P/Hartley 2 is the small, hyperactive comet that NASA's EPOXI mission flew past in 2010, revealing a peanut-shaped nucleus about two kilometers long with jets of carbon-dioxide gas blasting chunks of ice into space.
- maximum extent
- 2.3 km
- Mass
- ~300 million metric tons
- Age
- ~4.5 billion years
- Composition
- Water ice, dust, frozen carbon dioxide
- Imaged by
- EPOXI · 2010
Image: NASA / JPL-Caltech / University of Maryland · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons