{"id":193,"date":"2021-12-02T12:45:12","date_gmt":"2021-12-02T11:45:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/comets\/"},"modified":"2026-10-08T00:25:20","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T22:25:20","slug":"comets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/es\/comets\/","title":{"rendered":"Los cometas"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Los pueblos de la antig\u00fcedad sent\u00edan temor de los cometas: se dec\u00eda que tra\u00edan mala suerte o que presagiaban desastres. Ahora sabemos que los cometas son peque\u00f1os mundos helados que se han desprendido de los planeta, como restos de su propia formaci\u00f3n. Se piensa que existen miles de millones de cometas en el l\u00edmite del sistema solar, m\u00e1s all\u00e1 de la \u00f3rbita de Plut\u00f3n.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

La mayor\u00eda de los cometas son tan peque\u00f1os y est\u00e1n tan lejos que no podemos verlos, ni siquiera con los telescopios m\u00e1s potentes. Pero s\u00ed podemos verlos cuando se acercan al Sol y les crecen colas de gas y polvo. (La palabra \u2018cometa\u2019 significa \u00abestrella peluda\u00bb.)<\/p>\n

El calor del sol hace que los trozos de hielo se conviertan en gas, en una estela que se prolonga millones de kil\u00f3metros hacia el espacio. A pesar de su longitud, las part\u00edculas de polvo que contiene la estela no son m\u00e1s grandes que granos de arena.<\/p>\n

\"Rosetta
Rosetta: la cazadora de cometas<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Algunos cometas tardan solo unos pocos a\u00f1os en dar una vuelta alrededor del Sol. Otros \u2014como el cometa Halley\u2014 tardan mucho m\u00e1s. Otros aparecen una sola vez y nunca m\u00e1s se vuelven a ver. La nave espacial SOHO de la ESA se ha utilizado para descubrir miles de peque\u00f1os cometas que pasan muy cerca del Sol. Muchos de ellos se estrellan contra el Sol o son desintegrados por su fuerte gravedad.<\/p>\n

En 2014, la nave espacial europea Rosetta har\u00e1 historia al entrar en \u00f3rbita alrededor de un cometa y depositar un m\u00f3dulo de aterrizaje en su superficie.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ancient people were afraid of comets \u2013 they were said to bring bad luck or foretell disaster. We now know that comets are small ice worlds that have been left […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"esa_banner_image":"https:\/\/www.esa.int\/var\/esa\/storage\/images\/esa_multimedia\/images\/2003\/04\/giotto_s_art_shows_a_comet_in_the_background2\/17913109-2-eng-GB\/Giotto_s_art_shows_a_comet_in_the_background.jpg","esa_banner_description":"Giotto's art shows a comet in the background","esa_banner_credit":"ESA","esa_banner_licence":"ESA Standard Licence","esa_banner_detail_url":"https:\/\/www.esa.int\/ESA_Multimedia\/Images\/2003\/04\/Giotto_s_art_shows_a_comet_in_the_background2","esa_external_url":"","esa_external_new_window":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":true},"categories":[46,10,11],"tags":[2],"panel":[],"language":[],"age":[],"duration":[],"resource_type":[],"audience":[],"wf_post_folders":[],"class_list":["post-193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comets-and-meteors","category-learn","category-our-universe","tag-background-article"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4350,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193\/revisions\/4350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193"},{"taxonomy":"panel","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/panel?post=193"},{"taxonomy":"language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/language?post=193"},{"taxonomy":"age","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/age?post=193"},{"taxonomy":"duration","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/duration?post=193"},{"taxonomy":"resource_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/resource_type?post=193"},{"taxonomy":"audience","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/audience?post=193"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}