Explanation:
Which direction is this comet heading?
Judging by the tail, one might imagine that
Comet Leonard is traveling towards the bottom right,
but a full 3D analysis shows it traveling
almost directly away from the camera.
With this perspective, the
dust tail is trailed towards the camera and can only be seen
as a short yellow-white glow near the head of the comet.
The bluish ion tail, however, is made up of escaping ions that are
forced directly away from the
Sun by the
solar wind --
but channeled along the
Sun's magnetic field lines.
The Sun's magnetic field is quite complex, however, and occasionally
solar magnetic reconnection will
break the ion tail into knots that are pushed away from
the Sun.
One such knot is visible in the featured one-hour
time-lapse video captured in late December from Thailand.
Comet Leonard is now fading as it heads out of
our Solar System.
Gallery:
Notable images submitted to APOD of
Comet Leonard in 2021
