Bringing dark comets to light
Michigan State UniversityPeer-Reviewed Publication
Where did Earth’s water come from? It’s a fundamental scientific question that has never been answered. In fact, NASA reports that we can only observe and understand 5% of the universe — with a whopping 95% remaining a complete mystery because of unobservable dark matter and dark energy. But recent research led by Michigan State University sheds new light on one phenomenon: dark comets.
Darryl Seligman, a postdoctoral fellow in the College of Natural Science’s top-ranked Department of Physics and Astronomy, is the lead author on a paper that uncovers seven new dark comets in our solar system.
With this discovery, he and the research team have doubled the population of known dark comets and are the first to identify two distinct types based on differences observed in orbit and size.
- Journal
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences