It’s small and faint and blurry but it’s definitely there… the first comet identified by WISE, NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer. At the center of the image is a fuzzy red dot. This dot is a 1.2-mile-wide ball of water ice and rock dubbed P/2010 B2 (WISE) – or just Comet WISE for short –…
Tag: comet
“X” Marks the Spot
With a long trail of material streaming out into space one would assume this to be a photo of a comet…but it’s not. Rather, it’s believed to be the result of a collision between two asteroids that produced a weird X-shaped pattern of filaments emanating from a small remnant object. Material from the filaments has…
And still they come…
Watching a video of SOHO images today, I noticed two more comets diving toward the Sun (located behind the white circle on the blue disc), on the 8th and the 9th. Both came from the same direction, from the lower left as seen in the still above. Watch the video here. With over 1500 comets…
The End of a Comet’s Tale
These two images, taken by the SOHO solar observatory spacecraft, show the last moments of a comet as it approaches the Sun in what turned out to be its final voyage…the Sun’s radiating energy sizzled the icy traveler shortly after. (See the video version on my earlier post.) The two images were taken with different…
Final Flight
On January 3, the European Space Agency’s SOHO solar observatory spacecraft captured images of a comet flying towards the Sun….and then disappearing into it, evaporating in heat of the solar furnace. The video above, taken by the spacecraft’s Heliospheric Imager which monitors the activity of the Sun’s corona, clearly shows the comet’s final moments before…
Blast Zone
The Hubble Space Telescope trained its newly-installed Wide Field Camera 3 on Jupiter, capturing a photo of the recent impact scar made on July 19. This image is the first taken by the new camera installed in May, and while it’s still uncalibrated, details can be seen of the dark debris plume that has spread…
Taking a Hit
Between the hours of 6am and noon EDT on Monday, July 20, something smashed into Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system. And here’s the scar to prove it. First noticed as a dark blotch by amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley, monitoring the giant planet via telescope from Australia, the impact was soon confirmed via…
Tunguska Mystery Solved?
Inspired by a post on Universe Today by Nancy Atkinson: 1908 Tunguska Event Caused by Comet, New Research Reveals Long the subject of debate, with various theories ranging from meteorite impact to a comet to a flying saucer’s sudden engine meltdown, there’s actually strong evidence that the 1908 “Tunguska Event” was likely caused by the explosion of a…
News Post: The Green Comet Cometh
This evening, February 24th, Comet Lulin will pass by Earth at its closest point during its maiden voyage through the inner solar system. Viewers will be able to see the viridian-hued visitor near the constellation Leo, in the southeastern sky. Lulin’s colors come from the cyanogen gases in its atmosphere. These are ionized by the…
Lights in the Dark 