COSMIC GRAVEYARD OF COMETS DISCOVERED

A cosmic graveyard of comets has been discovered by astronomers in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Researchers, led by Ignacio Ferrin from the University of Antioquia describe how some of these objects, inactive for millions of years, have returned to life leading them to name the group the ‘Lazarus comets’. Most observed have highly elliptical orbits, meaning that they only rarely approach the sun. Some of these so called long period comets take thousands of years to complete each orbit around our nearest star. Although uncommon events, comets also collide with Earth from time to time and may have helped bring water to our Planet. The study looked at a third and distinct region of the solar system, the main belt of asteroid between Mars and Jupiter.