Oct. 9 Hubble View of ISON

On Oct. 9, 2013, Hubble observed comet ISON once again, when it was inside the orbit of Mars, about 177 million miles from Earth. This image shows that the comet was still intact despite some predictions that the fragile icy nucleus might disintegrate closer to the sun. The comet will pass closest to the sun on Nov. 28, 2013. If the nucleus had broke apart then Hubble would have likely seen evidence of multiple fragments. Moreover, the coma, or head, surrounding the comet's nucleus is symmetric and smooth. This would probably not be the case if clusters of smaller fragments were flying along. This color composite image was assembled using two filters. The comet's coma appears cyan, a greenish-blue color due to gas, while the tail is reddish due to dust streaming off the nucleus. The tail forms as dust particles are pushed away from the nucleus by the pressure of sunlight. Credit: NASA -------- More details on Comet ISON: Comet ISON began its trip from the Oort cloud region of our solar system and is now travelling toward the sun. The comet will reach its closest approach to the sun on Thanksgiving Day -- 28 Nov 2013 -- skimming just 730,000 miles above the sun's surface. If it come

Date

2017-12-08

Collection

GSFC

Archive

NASA Image and Video Library

Type

photograph

Need photos for a whole script? Add Find Any Photo to Claude and ask for this one by its id: 17696.