Sungrazing Comet ISON, C/2012 S1
Modeled image of ISON, the coma has been subtracted, leaving behind the nucleus. Catalogued as C/2012 S1, Comet ISON was first spotted 585 million miles away in September 2012. This is ISON's very first trip around the sun, which means it is still made of pristine matter from the earliest days of the solar system's formation, its top layers never having been lost by a trip near the sun. Comet ISON is, like all comets, a dirty snowball made up of dust and frozen gases like water, ammonia, methane and carbon dioxide, some of the fundamental building blocks that scientists believe led to the formation of the planets billion years ago. ISON stands for International Scientific Optical Network, a group of observatories in ten countries who have organized to detect, monitor, and track objects in space. ISON is managed by the Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics, part of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Size: 4500px × 2240px
Photo credit: © Photo Researchers / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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