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| Comet Hyakutake is a comet discovered by the Japanese amateur astronomer Yuji Hyakutake. The comet was visible to the naked eye throughout much of the world in the Spring of 1996. This image of a small region near the nucleus of the comet was recorded by the Hubble Space Telescope in late March, 1996, when the comet passed just 9.3 million miles from Earth. Comets are dense lumps of ice, dust, and gas that orbit the Sun with orbital periods ranging from decades to millions of years. The orbital period of comet Hyakutake is about 29,500 years. |
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