The comet will get brighter and its tail will grow longer. The pressure of the solar wind sweeps the material into a tail, like a breeze blowing a windsock.Īs the comet warms as it moves closer to the sun, its rate of sublimation (a process similar to evaporation in which solid matter transitions directly into gas) will increase. Its skyrocket-looking tail is really a streamer of gas and dust bleeding off the icy nucleus, which is surrounded by a bright star-like-looking coma. Unlike a firework, the comet is not combusting, but in fact is pretty cold. The deep-space visitor streaks silently against the background stars. The comet travels 34,000 miles (55,000 kilometers) in this brief video, or 7 percent of the distance between Earth and the moon. The movie shows a sequence of Hubble observations taken over a 43-minute span and compresses this into just five seconds. At the time the images were taken, the comet was 403 million miles (649 million kilometers) from Earth, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. ![]() Its swift motion is captured in this time-lapse movie made from a sequence of pictures taken May 8, 2013, by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. Superficially resembling a skyrocket, comet ISON is hurtling toward the sun presently at a whopping 48,000 mph (77,00 kph). This July Fourth the solar system is showing off some fireworks of its own. NGC 6302 lies about 4,000 light-years away in the arachnologically correct constellation of the Scorpion (Scorpius). Molecular hydrogen has been detected in the hot star’s dusty cosmic shroud. Cutting across a bright cavity of ionized gas, the dust torus surrounding the central star is near the center of this view, almost edge-on to the line-of-sight. This sharp and colorful close-up of the dying star’s nebula was recorded in 2009 by the Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3, installed during the final shuttle servicing mission. With an estimated surface temperature of about 250,000 degrees C, the dying central star of this particular planetary nebula has become exceptionally hot, shining brightly in ultraviolet light but hidden from direct view by a dense torus of dust. Though its wingspan covers over 3 light-years, NGC 6302 is no exception. The bright clusters and nebulae of planet Earth’s night sky are often named for flowers or insects. Enjoy! The Butterfly Nebula Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team Here are some beautiful space photos and videos that have been posted on the Internet recently. There is a story behind the naming of this quirky constellation - Antlia was originally named “antlia pneumatica” by French astronomer Abbé Nicolas Louis de Lacaille, in honor of the invention of the air pump in the 17th century.Ĭredit: Hubble/European Space Agency and NASA The bright center of the galaxy is thought to be caused by the ejection of huge amounts of super-hot gas from the region around a central black hole. This spiral is what astronomers call a Seyfert-2 galaxy, a kind of spiral galaxy characterized by an extremely bright nucleus and very strong emission lines from certain elements - hydrogen, helium, nitrogen, and oxygen. In this image, it is easy to spot IC 2560’s spiral arms and barred structure. This cluster is unusual unlike most other galaxy clusters, it appears to have no dominant galaxy within it. At this distance it is a relatively nearby spiral galaxy, and is part of the Antlia cluster - a group of over 200 galaxies held together by gravity. Lying more than 110 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Antlia (The Air Pump) is the spiral galaxy IC 2560, shown here in an image from NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. This new Hubble image shows a nearby galaxy that, like true love, is beautiful, full of wonder and everlasting!
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