Sungrazing Comet ISON, C/2012 S1
Comet ISON shows off its tail in this three-minute exposure taken on November 19, 2013 at 6:10 EST, using a 14-inch telescope located at the Marshall Space Flight Center. The comet is just nine days away from its close encounter with the sun; hopefully it will survive to put on a nice show during the first week of December. The star images are trailed because the telescope is tracking on the comet, which is now exhibiting obvious motion with respect to the background stars over a period of minutes. At the time of this image, Comet ISON was some 44 million miles from the sun and 80 million miles from Earth moving at a speed of 136,700 miles per hour. 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: 4800px × 2320px
Photo credit: © Photo Researchers / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: /2012, 2013, 21st, astronomical, astronomy, body, celestial, century, coma, comet, comet-tail, deep, heavenly, international, ison, network, nevski-novichonok, object, optical, perihelion, s1, science, scientific, sky, space, sun, sungrazing, tail
