Evidence Found For Unseen Comet That May Threaten Earth

This story was updated at 6:10 p.m. EDT.

A surprise meteor shower spotted in February was likely caused by cosmic “bread crumbs” dropped by an undiscovered comet that could potentially pose a threat to Earth, astronomers announced today (July 27).

The tiny meteoroids that streaked through Earth’s atmosphere for a few hours on Feb. 4 represent a previously unknown meteor shower, researchers said. The “shooting stars” arrived from the direction of the star Eta Draconis, so the shower is called the February Eta Draconids, or FEDs for short.The bits of debris appear to have been shed by a long-period comet. Long-period comets whiz by the sun very infrequently, so it’s tough to predict when they last cruised through our neck of the woods — and when they’ll come back, researchers said.

That uncertainty is cause for some concern in this case, they added. [Close Encounters of the Comet Kind]

“If the meteoroids can hit us, so can the comet,” said FEDs discoverer Peter Jenniskens, of the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute and NASA’s Ames Research Center. “We don’t know whether the comet has already passed us by or is still on approach.”

Still, Jenniskens stressed that the chances of such a collision are extremely remote.

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