What type of Solar System body is Halley's Comet?

Halley’s Comet is a periodic comet, officially designated 1P/Halley. It follows a recurring elliptical orbit around the Sun and returns to the inner Solar System roughly every 75 to 76 years. This makes it a short-period comet, rather than a moon, asteroid, or dwarf planet.

Its repeated appearances were recorded for centuries. In 1705, English astronomer Edmond Halley compared observations from 1531, 1607, and 1682 and realized they represented the same object. He successfully predicted its return, which was first observed in 1758. The comet was later named in his honor.

Halley’s orbit is unusually elongated, reaching from near the orbits of Mercury and Venus out toward the region of Neptune. As it approaches the Sun, sunlight heats its icy nucleus, releasing gas and dust to form a glowing coma and tail. Spacecraft studied it closely in 1986, when ESA’s Giotto mission photographed its nucleus. Its next inner-Solar-System visit is expected in 2061.