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Comet 73/P Schwassmann-Wachmann just keeps getting cooler. The above image is from the Spitzer Space Telescope, and shows the infrared light from the comet. Look at all dust and junk! I think — I’m not sure, but I think — the line you see connecting the chunks of the comet may just be dust that has spread out from the comet in a thin disk around it, and we are seeing it almost edge-on.
So that’s cool. But it gets better. On Saturday I was playing around with some planetarium software to see where the comet would be in the next few days, and saw that it would pass really close to a perennial amateur astronomer favorite, the Ring Nebula. I posted quickly on the Bad Astronomy/Universe Today forum about it, and my old friend astronomer Bill Keel jumped right on it. Here is an image he took:
I mean, wow. That is so cool. The Ring Nebula is a dying star, something like the Sun but older, that is emitting a wind of gas from its surface (like a super-solar wind). That’s what looks like a ring around the (faint) central star. For a somewhat more detailed image of the Ring, check out this Hubble image.
Anyway, the Ring is about 2000 light years from Earth, or about 12 quadrillion miles (12,000,000,000,000,000). Yikes. The comet is relatively nearby, at only about 10 million miles (and getting closer every day, until about May 15 or so when it starts to head off into the sunset). The comet looks streaked in the image because even during the short exposure it moved appreciably. It’s so close to Earth that its motion (about 14 kilometers/second) is noticeable even in a few seconds at the eyepiece.
Bill is a professional astronomer, and he has a comet page with lots of nifty images (though 73/P hasn’t made it there yet).
I may be posting more images as they come in.
Oh yeah– I’ll be talking about this comet and how it won’t be killing everybody on Earth on the radio show Earth Changes, which generally deals with some, ah, fringe science topics. That’s Tuesday May 9 (tonight!) at 9:00 Pacific time. That link will take you to streaming audio for the show, so you can listen to me live as I blather on.’
May 9th, 2006 at 12:34 am
This image posted on SpaceWeather.com is truly awesome:
Comet + Ring. Check out the nifty little background galaxy!
May 9th, 2006 at 6:22 am
BA, how powerful a scope would a backyard astronomer need to see this?
May 9th, 2006 at 6:28 am
DennyMo,
It should be visible in a pair of department store binoculars if you know where to look. You may not see the tail but the commet will be easy to spot.
jerry
May 9th, 2006 at 6:29 am
“…the line you see connecting the chunks of the comet may just be dust that has spread out from the comet in a thin disk around it, and we are seeing it almost edge-on.”
I think you’re right – notice the “anti-tail” that is a continuation of the line in the sunward direction.
May 9th, 2006 at 7:09 am
And, of course, it will be cloudy/rainy in New England for the next 5 days. I read about the comet going by the Ring Nebula back in March when I got the May Sky & Telescope. It was cloudy for that too.
May 9th, 2006 at 8:08 am
That’s a very cool picture. I mean, very cool.
For those of us trapped below a perpetual haze — the great M0 Nebula — lit by streetlamps and office buildings like a stellar nursery illuminated by infant suns, this is as close as we get.
May 9th, 2006 at 8:30 am
Dear BA, you said “Comet P/72 Schwassmann-Wachmann just keeps getting cooler.” Don’t you mean “P/73″? Or is P/72 another chunk of the same comet?
May 9th, 2006 at 8:32 am
And to be even more nitpicking, it’s actually 73P/ and not P/73…
May 9th, 2006 at 11:13 am
A great animation of the event can be found at…
http://astronomy.qteaser.com/images/m57cometanimations.gif
May 9th, 2006 at 4:06 pm
Hey, that picture of the comet and the Ring Nebula – it looks like there’s a faint halo around the ring that I’ve never seen before. Is that really there or is it just an artifact?
May 9th, 2006 at 4:07 pm
Sorry, I meant to say, “…that picture of the comet and the Ring Nebula that Supernova posted at the top…”
So, is there a halo?
May 9th, 2006 at 4:13 pm
Yeah, it has a giant halo around it. Many planetary nebulae do. I studied on (NGC 6826) for my Masters degree.
May 9th, 2006 at 4:15 pm
Never mind, I just answered my own question by doing a search on APOD. This picture shows the halo clearly, along with a whole slew of background galaxies (the orientation is rotated about 90 degrees). Cool.
May 9th, 2006 at 4:17 pm
Dang, my html didn’t work. Here’s the APOD picture:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050723.html
May 9th, 2006 at 6:06 pm
That Comet looks like a big-FAT-cigar & the Nebula looks like a giant smoke ring…
May 9th, 2006 at 7:32 pm
It’s still cloudy here in Pennsy. Visibility of this comet depends on how much light pollution there is too!
You should be able to see it with 15 x 70’s in a dark sky.
A 10 inch Dob can also see it but it’s still dim in a light polluted sky.