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Credit & Copyright: Damian Peach,
Jose J. Chambo
Explanation:
Discovered with the PanSTARRS telescope on September 7, 2016,
this Comet PanSTARRS,
C/2016 R2,
is presently
about 24 light minutes (3 AU) from the Sun,
sweeping through planet
Earth's skies
across the background of stars in the constellation Taurus.
An inbound visitor from our Solar System's
distant Oort
Cloud, its beautiful and complex
ion tail is a remarkable shade of blue.
Still relatively far from the Sun, the comet's already well-developed
ion tail is very impressive.
Emission from
unusually abundant ionized carbon monoxide (CO+) atoms
fluorescing in the increasing sunlight is largely responsible
for the pretty blue tint.
This
color image
of the blue comet is a combination
of data taken from two different telescopes during the night of
January 7.
Located at the apex of the V-shaped
Hyades star cluster in
Taurus, bright star Gamma Tauri is responsible for the glow at the
bottom left corner of the frame.
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NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: comet
Publications with words: comet
See also:
- APOD: 2025 January 13 Á Comet ATLAS Before Sunrise
- APOD: 2024 December 16 Á A Kilometer High Cliff on Comet Churyumov Gerasimenko
- APOD: 2024 November 27 Á The Meteor and the Comet
- APOD: 2024 November 11 Á The Unusual Tails of Comet Tsuchinshan Atlas
- APOD: 2024 November 6 Á Comet Tsuchinshan Atlas over the Dolomites
- APOD: 2024 October 21 Á Comet Tsuchinshan ATLAS over California
- Comet Tsuchinshan ATLAS Flys Away