Most UT students will know of this little observatory on the Hill where Astronomy students can view the night skies. Now, a comet that has unexpectedly brightened in the past couple of weeks and now is visible to the naked eye is attracting both professional and amateur interest.

Sky gazers get to see what a tail-less comet looks like, without a telescope.

CEST, the thrusters of ESA’s comet chaser, Rosetta, were fired in a planned, 42-second trajectory correction manoeuvre designed to 'fine tune' the spacecraft's approach to Earth. Rosetta is now approaching Earth for its second planetary swing-by of 2007.

Scientists at the Naval Research Laboratory report they have captured the first images of a collision between a comet and a solar hurricane. It is the first time scientists have witnessed such an event on another cosmic body. One of NASA's pair of Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory satellites, known as STEREO, recorded the event on April 20, 2007.

Comets are made of the most primitive stuff in the solar system. As hunks of rock and ice that never coalesced into more planets, they give researchers clues to the evolution of solar systems.

A NASA satellite has captured the first images of a collision between a comet and a solar hurricane. It is the first time scientists have witnessed such an event on another cosmic body. One of NASA's pair of Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory satellites, known as STEREO, recorded the event April 20.

Recent probes inside comets show it is overwhelmingly likely that life began in space, according to a new paper by Cardiff University scientists.

Two University of Oregon researchers are on a multi-institutional 26-member team proposing a startling new theory: that an extraterrestrial impact, possibly a comet, set off a 1,000-year-long cold spell and wiped out or fragmented the prehistoric Clovis culture and a variety of animal genera across North America almost 13,000 years ago.