Documentation / @interstellar-tools/constants / COMETS

Variable: COMETS

const COMETS: CometsType;

Defined in: bodies/comets.ts:30

Represents a collection of well-known comets within the solar system simulation.

INFO

• Units: a (au), period (days), radius (km); angles i, w, om in degrees.

• orbit.angle is the true anomaly at J2000, from the mean anomaly in JPL Horizons' osculating elements at J2000, converted with this dataset's e.

• period is always positive; retrograde orbits have retrograde: true.

• Sources: compiled from public references, mainly NASA, NASA JPL, ESA and Wikipedia. See data sources.

Full list of comets in the dataset

This list is not an exhaustive list, and addition/changes will be added over time.

id	name	type	category	parent	orbit.a	orbit.e	orbit.i	orbit.w	orbit.om	orbit.angle	orbit.period	orbit.retrograde	orbit.q	display.color	display.size	radius
1p-halley	Halley's Comet	periodic comet	halley-type comet	sun	17.834 au	0.96714	162.26	111.33	58.42	2.97966	27576 d	yes	0.586 au	#FFFFFF	5	5.5 km
c-1995-o1-hale-bopp	Comet Hale-Bopp	oort cloud comet	long-period comet	sun	186 au	0.9951	89.4	130.6	282.5	2.550719	926530 d		0.914 au	#00A6FF	4	30 km
67p-churyumov-gerasimenko	Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko	short-period comet	jupiter-family comet	sun	3.464 au	0.641	7.04	12.78	50.14	3.32542	2355 d		1.243 au	#AAAAAA	4	2 km
2p-encke	Comet Encke	short-period comet	jupiter-family comet	sun	2.22 au	0.85	11.8	186.5	334.6	3.479299	1204 d		0.34 au	#FFD700	3	4.8 km

Example item in dataset:

{
  id: '2p-encke',
  name: 'Comet Encke',
  type: 'short-period comet',
  category: 'jupiter-family comet',
  parent: 'sun',
  orbit: {
    a: { value: 2.22, unit: 'au' },
    e: 0.85,
    i: 11.8 as DegreesType,
    w: 186.5 as DegreesType,
    om: 334.6 as DegreesType,
    angle: 3.479299 as Radians,
    period: { value: 1204, unit: 'd' }, // ~3.3 years
    q: { value: 0.34, unit: 'au' }
  },
  display: {
    color: '#FFD700', // Golden yellow (dusty tail, lower albedo)
    size: 3
  },
  radius: { value: 4.8, unit: 'km' }
}

See

CometsType.

Example

console.log(COMETS[0].name); // "Halley's Comet"