Credit: ESA/NASA/NRL/ SoloHI/Guillermo Stenborg
When Comet Leonard, a mass of area dust, rock, and ice about a half-mile (1 kilometer) wide, makes its closest pass of the Sun on January 3, 2022, it will be a journey 40,000 years in the making. Ahead of its close pass, two Sun-observing spacecraft caught these views of the comet.
The animated image listed below was captured by NASAs Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory-A spacecraft, SECCHI/HI -2 telescope, which has actually viewed the comet because early November. This animated “distinction image” was created by subtracting the present frame from the previous frame to highlight differences between them. Difference images work for seeing subtle changes in Leonards ion tail (the path of ionized gases streaming from the comets body, or nucleus), which becomes longer and brighter towards the end of the clip.
Difference image, which highlights subtle changes in comet Leonards tail over two frames, recorded by the HI-2 telescope aboard NASAs STEREO-A spacecraft. Credit: NASA/NRL/Karl Battams
The video below, captured between December 17-19, 2021 by the Solar Orbiter Heliospheric Imager (SoloHI) aboard the ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter spacecraft, reveals Comet Leonard spotting diagonally throughout the field of view with the Milky Way in the background. Throughout this series, Solar Orbiter moves toward a sidelong view of the comet, revealing more of its tail.
Comet Leonard was found in January 2021 by Gregory Leonard, who identified it in images taken from the Mt. Lemmon Observatory in Arizona. Its closest hand down January 3, 2022 will take it within 56 million miles (90 million kilometers) of the Sun, a little over half Earths range. If it doesnt disintegrate, its trajectory will fling it into interstellar area, never ever to return.