I like astronomy, archaeology, photography, music and drinking a lot of tea. I hate politics. Something that annoys me: that I shall not respect the permanence, and to take me by what I'm not. The best sign: VIRGO. The worst: the health. The best: adapt and know how to get ahead. FIRST BLOG: esplaobs.blogspot.com, SECOND BLOG: esplaobs02.blogspot.com, RETRO BLOG: esplaobs01.blogspot.com, YOUTUBE CHANNELS: esplaobs, esplaobs. ext02. Instagram: esplaobsrosario. Welcome to my BLOGs !
Thursday, November 15, 2018
COMET 46P/WIRTANEN Image Credit & Copyright: Alex Cherney (Terrastro, TWAN)
Periodic Comet 46P/Wirtanen is now the brightest comet in the night sky, but too faint to be seen by eye. From dark sky sites it could just become naked-eye visible though, as it's 5.4 year long looping orbit takes it closest to Earth and the Sun in mid December. Fluorescing in sunlight, its spherical coma is about half the angular size of a full moon in this southern hemisphere telescopic view from November 7. Then the comet was about 2 light-minutes away or 35 million kilometers from Earth-bound telescopes, so the pretty greenish coma seen here is around 150,000 kilometers across. That makes it about the size of Jupiter. The stack of digital images also reveals a very faint tail extending toward 4 o'clock with a distant background galaxy notable at the upper left. As a regular visitor to the inner Solar System, comet 46P/Wirtanen was once the favored rendezvous target for ESA's comet exploring Rosetta mission.
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