A newly released image of the comet NEOWISE shows that it survived its encounter with the sun intact.
The image, made by the Hubble Space Telescope on August 8, shows the dust and gas coming out of the comet as it formed behind the sun. This glow measures about 11,000 miles across the image and shows the detail in which the Hubble is capable of taking photos.
“Hubble has a much better resolution than we can get with any other telescope of this comet,” Caltech student Qicheng Zhang said in a statement. “That resolution is very important for details to be seen very close to the core. It shows us changes in dust immediately after it has been stripped from that core due to solar heat, and sampling of dust as close to the original properties of the comet as possible. “
“Because comets are made of ice, they are fragile,” Zhang added in another statement. “And we weren’t quite sure if Comet NEOWISE would survive the journey around the sun.”
Comet ISON, which passed through the sun in 2013, did not survive its encounter with the sun.
Most comets have two tails, a dust tail and one made of electrically charged molecules, according to NASA. However, images released by NASA in July suggest that NEOWISE may actually have two ion tails.
“The jets contain material deep in the comet,” Zhang explained. “We can see what all this buried material looks like.”
The comet, also called C / 2020 F3, was discovered March 27 by NASA’s Near Space Earth Telescope NEOWISE (Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer).
It is the brightest visible comet to be seen in the Northern Hemisphere since Hale-Bopp, which flew past Earth in 1997.
NEOWISE was the dream of a photographer, delivering incredible images both on earth and in space.
It was observed with the naked eye from mid-July to mid-August. The comet’s closest approach to Earth was on July 22 at a distance of about 64 million miles.
Comet NEOWISE is now returning to the outer part of the solar system and will not return for another 6,800 years.
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