Comets, the frozen leftovers from the formation of the Solar System, are one of the biggest attractions for stargazers and astronomers across the world. A new study reveals that scientists can detect meteor showers from the debris in the path of comets that pass close to Earth's orbit.
The meteor shower survey published in the journal Icarus states that these meteor showers are detected only if the comet's orbit has an orbital period of fewer than 4000 years. Long-period comet meteor showers are significantly dispersed in solar longitude and speed.
Researchers detected that the number of known meteor showers with long-period comet parent bodies has grown from 5 to 14. Ranging from a few miles to tens of miles in size, these comets spew up dust and gas as they come close to the Sun creating illumination in their path due to heat.

The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute, in a statement, said that comets comprise only a small fraction of all impactors on Earth, but researchers believe they caused some of the biggest impact events over the planet’s history because they can be big and the fact that their orbits are such that they can impact at high speed.