A recently discovered comet named Machholz is turning into a fine site for backyard astronomers
A recently discovered comet named Machholz is turning into a fine sight for
backyard astronomers. It became faintly visible to the naked eye in December
and will be at its brightest this month.
Paolo Candy of the Cimini Astronomical Observatory in Italy obtained this image of the comet on Jan. 1. Using a telescope and time exposure, more detail is brought out than is evident to the naked eye.
Comet Machholz is not expected to be a spectacle on the order of Hale-Bopp
or Halley's comet, but through binoculars or a small telescope under dark evening
skies it is well worth a look.
Comets sometimes shine brightly because as they approach the Sun, gas and dust is essentially boiled off the surface by radiation and the solar wind, a stream of charged particles emanating from the Sun. Astronomers call the process sublimation.
In this view, the long tail is made of gas. The short jet is composed of dust, which is not so easily pushed by the solar wind.
-- Robert Roy Britt
Image credit: Paolo Candy, Cimini Astronomical Observatory
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