Image from May 7, 2013 of a the inner region of Comet ISON, as seen with the 2-meter La Palma Telescope. Credit: Nick Howes and Ernesto Guido, Remanzacco Observatory.
In April, when the Hubble Space Telescope looked out towards Jupiter’s...
Image from May 7, 2013 of a the inner region of Comet ISON, as seen with the 2-meter La Palma Telescope. Credit: Nick Howes and Ernesto Guido, Remanzacco Observatory.
In April, when the Hubble Space Telescope looked out towards Jupiter’s orbit and observed what has been billed as the “Comet of the Century” – Comet C/2012 S1 ISON – the space telescope photographed a unique feature in the comet’s coma. Now, a team of ground-based astronomers have performed follow-up observations, imaging Comet ISON as it heads towards the Sun and was just outside the orbit of Mars. They, too, have seen this unique feature, which is thought to be a jet blasting dust particles off the sunward-facing side of the comet’s nucleus. These very useful follow-up observations are providing more insight on this highly anticipated comet, as well as helping to predict what might happen it makes its closest approach to the Sun in November 2013.
“The hype surrounding this comet has been extreme” said Nick Howes from the Remanzacco Observatory, “with some wildly optimistic estimates for magnitude. We’re hoping this measured scientific approach will yield results just as exciting to the science community, even if the comet doesn’t end up meeting everyone’s expectations visually, for whatever reason.”
(...)Read the rest of Astronomers Detect Dust Feature in Comet ISON’s Inner Coma (808 words)
© nancy for Universe Today, 2013. |
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Post tags: Comet ISON, Comets
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