Trail of Dust | Space Wallpaper

Wallpapers
By Space.com Staff
published

Comet ISON Enhanced Hubble Image space wallpaper
This stunning space wallpaper is a NASA Hubble Space Telescope image of Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) when the comet was slightly closer than Jupiter's orbit at a distance of 386 million miles (621 km) from the sun. (Image credit: NASA/ESA,/J.-Y. Li (Planetary Science Institute), and the Hubble Comet ISON Imaging Science Team)

This stunning space wallpaper is a NASA Hubble Space Telescope image of Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) when the comet was slightly closer than Jupiter's orbit at a distance of 386 million miles (621 km) from the sun. This is a contrast-enhanced photo produced from the Hubble images of Comet ISON to reveal the subtle structure in the inner coma of the comet. In this computer-processed view, the Hubble image has been divided by a computer model coma that decreases in brightness proportionally to the distance from the nucleus, as expected for a comet that is producing dust uniformly over its surface. ISON's coma shows enhanced dust particle release on the sunward-facing side of the comet's nucleus, the small, solid body at the core of the comet. This image was taken April 19, 2013.

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Space.com Staff
Space.com Staff
News and editorial team

Space.com is the premier source of space exploration, innovation and astronomy news, chronicling (and celebrating) humanity's ongoing expansion across the final frontier. Originally founded in 1999, Space.com is, and always has been, the passion of writers and editors who are space fans and also trained journalists. Our current news team consists of Editor-in-Chief Tariq Malik; Editor Hanneke Weitering, Senior Space Writer Mike Wall; Senior Writer Meghan Bartels; Senior Writer Chelsea Gohd, Senior Writer Tereza Pultarova and Staff Writer Alexander Cox, focusing on e-commerce. Senior Producer Steve Spaleta oversees our space videos, with Diana Whitcroft as our Social Media Editor.