The European Space Agency’s Near-Earth Objects Coordination Center used the Calar Alto-Schmidt telescope in Spain to capture this view of Comet Leonard on December 7.
ESA / NEOCC
He is the smartest offender of the year Difficult to identify with human eyes On Earth, but the European Space Agency and NASA’s Solar Orbiter Spacecraft have excellent visibility. The European Space Agency released a film on Tuesday showing the Komet Leonard – dubbed “Christmas Comet” – blasted off through space.
There’s more than just a comet—half a mile wide and made of rock, dust, and ice—on display. The Milky Way makes a shimmering background and Venus and Mercury appear in the top right corner (Venus is the brightest).
The orbiting Solar Heliosphere Imager (SoloHi) instrument on the spacecraft provided the images that were included in the video. “When SoloHi recorded these images, the comet was located roughly between the Sun and the spacecraft, with a tail of gas and dust pointing toward the spacecraft,” The European Space Agency said in a statement. The footage tracks the comet from December 17-19.
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Solar Orbiter launches in 2020 To embark on a 10 year journey to study the Sun and photograph the polar regions of our star for the first time. The spacecraft will continue to observe Leonard until December 22.
The comet is heading for a passage closer to the Sun and its fate is uncertain, making the Solar Orbiter’s motion recording all the more poignant. The European Space Agency said of the comet’s Christmas time, “If it doesn’t disintegrate, its trajectory will throw it into interstellar space, never to return.”
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