How fast is Comet HOLMES traveling at?

Answer 1

250,000 miles per hour, on average; Faster when its elliptical orbit brings it closer to Mars' orbit, slower when it's out near Jupiter's orbit.

1. Comet Holmes' has a revolutionary period of about 6.9 Earth years, so it has to travel the whole circumference of its orbit in that amount of time.
2. Its elliptical orbit lies beyond Mars' and within Jupiter's. (N.B. the asteroid belt also lies there, one of which it probably smashed into 5 days ago . . .)
3. Jupiter's nearly circular orbit has an average radius of over 700 million km.
4. Mars' orbit has an average radius of about 220 million km.
5. So for argument's sake, let's just squeeze the comet's egg-shaped orbit into a circle, so it would have a radius of about 400 million km.
6. The circumference of the comet's orbit would then be: 2(pi)r = 2(400 million km)(3.141592) = 25 billion km;
7. Comet Holmes' average speed would therefore be: 25 billion km/ 6.9 years = 3.6 billion km/year = about 10 million km / day
8. 10 million km / 24 hours = 400,000 km/hour or 250,000 miles an hour ;

In other words it would take an hour to get from here to the Moon (The Apollo rocket ships took 4 days)

Answer 2

It is now receding from the Sun and not travelling very fast.

Answer 3

As it approaches the sun it will go about 200,000 MPH.