Jupiter-family comet

A short-period comet whose orbit is strongly influenced by Jupiter and typically takes less than 20 years to complete.

Tisserand parameter: A dimensionless quantity used to compare small-body orbits relative to a planet in the restricted three-body problem. Its value relative to Jupiter helps distinguish Jupiter-family comet orbits from other comet populations.
Centaurs: Small Solar System bodies with unstable orbits between Jupiter and Neptune. Centaurs are the principal known transitional population feeding Jupiter-family comets.
2P/Encke: A short-period comet with an orbital period of about 3.3 years and one of the lowest inclinations among known comets. Its orbit is an unusual, low-inclination example within the Jupiter-family population.
Halley-type comet: A short-period comet with an orbital period of roughly 20 to 200 years, often on a retrograde or highly inclined orbit. Its longer period and different orbital distribution distinguish it from Jupiter-family comets.
Cometary activity: The release of gas and dust from a comet as solar heating drives volatile material from its nucleus. Repeated close solar passages produce the comas and tails used to observe these bodies.
Kozai mechanism: A dynamical effect in which a distant perturber exchanges a small body's orbital inclination and eccentricity. It can alter comet eccentricities and inclinations during long-term orbital evolution.
Scattered disc: A region of trans-Neptunian space populated by icy bodies on eccentric, inclined orbits altered by Neptune. Some models trace Centaur precursors of Jupiter-family comets back to this reservoir.
67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko: A Jupiter-family comet visited by ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft from 2014 to 2016. Rosetta’s close study connected the family’s orbital dynamics with detailed nucleus geology and activity.
Long-period comet: A comet with an orbital period longer than 200 years, generally arriving from the Oort cloud. Its distant source and long orbit contrast with the family’s Jupiter-controlled, short-period paths.
Cometary outgassing: The escape of gas from a comet’s nucleus as volatile ices heat and sublimate. Outgassing changes rotation and can gradually alter a comet’s orbit.

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