Comet 46P Wirtanen STSCI-H-p1863
To make this composite image, the color blue was applied to high-resolution grayscale exposures acquired from the spacecraft's WFC3 instrument.
The inner part of a comet’s coma is normally not accessible from Earth. The close fly-by of comet 46P/Wirtanen allowed astronomers to study it in detail. They combined the unique capabilities of Hubble, NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, and the Neil Gehrels-Swift observatory to study how gases are released from the nucleus, what the comet’s ices are composed of, and how gas in the coma is chemically altered by sunlight and solar radiation.
The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, in Washington, D.C.Relevante Bilder
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46P/Wirtanen46P/Wirtanen ist ein kurzperiodischer Komet mit einer Umlaufzeit von 5,4 Jahren um die Sonne. Damit gehört er zu den zehn Schweifsternen mit der kürzesten Periode. .. weiterlesen