NASA’s Parker Solar Probe (PSP) is not the only spacecraft that is observing comets these days.
PSP broke a beautiful image of the bright comet NEOWISE on July 5, two days after the icy bum hit perihelion, its closest approach to the sun. The PSP photo clearly shows twin tails coming out of the comet, one made from dust and the other from ionized gas.
And two other spacecraft studying the sun captured images of NEOWISE kite, in the period prior to its perihelion passage.
Related: How to see the NEOWISE comet in the night sky this month
Plus: Incredible photos of Comet NEOWISE from Earth and space
The NASA Solar and Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) mission snapped a photo on June 24 that makes NEOWISE look like a fireball streaking through the night sky. And the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), a joint effort between NASA and the European Space Agency, tracked the incoming NEOWISE hike for nearly a week, June 22-27.
SOHO uses an instrument called a coronagraph to block the sun’s blindingly bright disk, allowing scientists to see the sun’s thin outer atmosphere, called the corona, as well as objects approaching our star. This strategy turns the spacecraft into a prolific kite hunter; SOHO recently discovered his 4,000 Icy tramp, actually.
NEOWISE’s location is not restricted to such an advanced and sharp-eyed spacecraft. The comet has been visible to the naked eye to viewers in light and dark skies before sunrise for more than a week, and a nightly show is also in the works. NEOWISE should begin to become visible low in the northwest sky just after sunset at any time.
You can learn more about Kite, which was discovered in March this year by NASA’s near-Earth wide-field infrared explorer spacecraft (hence the name), through a couple of NASA events tomorrow (July 15) ).
The agency will host a broadcast of Comet NEOWISE “NASA Science Live” at 3 pm EDT (1900 GMT) tomorrow, then continue with a press conference at 4 pm EDT (2000 GMT). The participants in the press conference are:
- Lindley Johnson, Planetary Defense Officer and Program Executive, NASA Planetary Defense Coordination Office, NASA Headquarters
- Emily Kramer, Co-Investigator of the Scientific Team NEOWISE Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (NASA), Jet Propulsion Laboratory
- Amy Mainzer, Principal Investigator, NEOWISE, University of Arizona
You can follow both events live here at Space.com, courtesy of NASA, or directly through the agency.
SOHO was launched in 1995, and the twin ship STEREO was launched in 2006. The STEREO-B probe went silent in 2014, but STEREO-A, which took the recent NEOWISE photo, is still getting stronger. The PSP took off in August 2018 and has already flown faster and closer to the sun than any other probe in history.
Mike Wall is the author of “Out There” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book on the search for extraterrestrial life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.
