This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image of Comet (C/2012 S1) ISON was photographed on April 10, 2013, when the comet was slightly closer than Jupiter's orbit at a distance of 394 million miles from Earth. Even at that great distance the comet is already active as sunlight warms the surface and causes frozen volatiles to boil off. Astronomers used such early images to try to measure the size of the nucleus, in order to predict whether the comet would stay intact when it slingshots around the sun -- at 700,000 miles above the sun's surface -- on Nov. 28, 2013. The comet's dusty coma, or head of
This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image of Comet (C/2012 S1) ISON was photographed on April 10, 2013, when the comet was slightly closer than Jupiter's orbit at a distance of 394 million miles from Earth. Even at that great distance the comet is already active as sunlight warms the surface and causes frozen volatiles to boil off. Astronomers used such early images to try to measure the size of the nucleus, in order to predict whether the comet would stay intact when it slingshots around the sun -- at 700,000 miles above the sun's surface -- on Nov. 28, 2013. The comet's dusty coma, or head of the comet, is approximately 3,100 miles across, or times the width of Australia. A dust tail extends more than 57,000 miles, far beyond Hubble's field of view. This image was taken in visible light. The blue false color was added to bring out details in the comet structure. Credit: NASA/ ESA/STScI/AURA -------- More details on Comet ISON: Comet ISON began its trip from the Oort cloud region of our solar system and is now travelling toward the sun. The comet will reach its closest approach to the sun on Thanksgiving Day -- 28 Nov 2013 -- skimming just 730,000 miles above the sun's surface. If it comes around the sun without breaking up, the comet will be visible in the Northern Hemisphere with the naked eye, and from what we see now, ISON is predicted to be a particularly bright and beautiful comet. 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. NASA has bee
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