Tuesday, November 26, 2013

See Comet ISON Without Getting Wet or Cold



NASA’s Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory, or STEREO, is monitoring Comet ISON as it approaches the sun. NASA’s twin Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) spacecraft are parked in Langrange zones, known as the L4 and L5 Lagrangian points, each centered about 93 million miles away along Earth’s orbit.

The latest movie from the STEREO-A spacecraft’s Heliospheric Imager shows the comet moving in from the left side over a two-day period from Nov. 20 to Nov. 22, 2013. In addition to Earth and Mercury, Comet Encke can also be seen moving through the middle of the view. The sun sits outside the field of view of this camera, located to the right, off-screen, hinted at by the steady stream of particles, called the solar wind, moving in from the right.
 Found at Watts Up With That.

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