Comet NEOWISE — Surviving the Sun

Aug 26, 2020 | Comets, Daily Space

Comet NEOWISE — Surviving the Sun
IMAGE: The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured the closest images yet of the sky’s latest visitor to make the headlines, comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE, after it passed by the Sun. This image features the color image of the comet taken by Hubble on 8 August 2020 within the frame of a ground-based image of the comet that was taken from the Northern Hemisphere on 18 July 2020.  Hubble’s image of the comet shows a portion of the comet’s coma, the fuzzy glow, which measures about 18,000 kilometers across in this image. Comet NEOWISE won’t pass through the inner solar system for another nearly 7,000 years. CREDIT: NASA, ESA, Q. Zhang (California Institute of Technology), A. Pagan (STScI), and Z. Levay

We bring you new images of Comet NEOWISE, which continues to generate research and press releases.

First up, the Hubble Space Telescope caught this picture, which zeroes in on the coma, the outer layer of the comet that gets heated by the Sun and glows so pretty in everyone’s pictures. The new photo shows that the nucleus of NEOWISE survived its closest pass with the Sun, although Hubble cannot resolve the tiny nucleus. Instead, Hubble saw two jets on opposite sides of the body. These jets are a result of ice sublimating out from under the surface of the nucleus and being squeezed out as gas and dust.

The press release goes on to further explain: The Hubble photos may help reveal the color of the comet’s dust and how those colors change as the comet moves away from the Sun. This, in turn, may explain how solar heat affects the composition and structure of that dust in the comet’s coma. The ultimate goal here would be to learn the original properties of the dust to learn more about the conditions of the early solar system in which it formed.

Last but not least, Gemini Observatory put together a set of images into a brief timelapse of comet NEOWISE that displays a spiraling stream of molecular gas that reveals the rotation of the comet’s nucleus. The timelapse sequence, compressed to only a few seconds, represents about one-fifth of the approximately 7.5-hour rotation period of the comet.

IMAGES: Comet NEOWISE obtained with Gemini North on Hawai‘i’s Maunakea on the night of 1 August 2020. This sequence was obtained using the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS) with the 468/8 nm filter and digitally enhanced using a dedicated algorithm. The field of view is 2 arcminutes across. CREDIT: International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/M. Drahus/P. Guzik

Basically, those jets that Hubble captured are shown by Gemini to be “spiraling outward like water from a spinning garden hose.”

More Information

CalTech press release 

Hubblesite press release 

European Space Agency press release 

NOIRLab press release 

“Rotation of Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE),” Michal Drahus et al., 2020 Aug. 14, Astronomers Telegram

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