The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) snapped stunning images of a short-period comet called 46P/Wirtanen as it was making its closest approach to Earth in four centuries.
Hubble captured this view of comet 46P/Wirtanen on December 13, 2018. Image credit: NASA / ESA / D. Bodewits, Auburn University / J.-Y. Li, Planetary Science Institute.
Discovered in January 1948 by the American astronomer Carl Wirtanen, 46P/Wirtanen is a member of the Jupiter family of comets — their farthest point from the Sun being near the orbit of Jupiter.
With a width of 0.7 miles (1.1 km), it orbits the Sun once every 5.4 years, much quicker than the 75-year orbit of the more famous comet Halley.
Most of its passes through the inner Solar System are much farther from Earth, making this year’s display particularly notable.
Hubble photographed 46P/Wirtanen on December 13, 2018, when the comet was 7.4 million miles (12 million km) from Earth.
In the visible-light image, the comet’s nucleus is hidden in the center of a fuzzy glow from its coma.
The inner part of a comet’s coma is normally not accessible from Earth. The close flyby of 46P/Wirtanen allowed astronomers to study it in detail.
The image is a composite of separate exposures acquired by Hubble Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) instrument.
SOFIA took this image of comet 46P/Wirtanen on December 16/17, 2018. Image credit: NASA / SOFIA.
SOFIA took an image of 46P/Wirtanen on December 16/17, 2018, when the aircraft was flying at 40,000 feet (12.2 km).
The image was taken with the telescope’s visible-light guide camera, using an orange filter to indicate the intensity of light relative to other objects.
SOFIA’s observations using infrared light to study the comet’s water are now under analysis.
