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Astronomers Predict the Orbits of Potentially Hazardous Comets From Meteor Showers

Long-period comets can have orbits that can take hundreds of years before they return to the inner Solar System and sometimes come dangerously close to Earth. To search for potentially hazardous comets, astronomers have used meteor showers as a historical record. When the Earth passes through a meteoroid stream left by a comet, we see a meteor shower. From these showers, they can calculate the orbit of the comet and predict when it will come back to our neighborhood.

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