Comet ISON Streaks Toward the Sun
Comet ISON shows off its tail in this three-minute exposure taken on Nov. 19, 2013 at 6:10 a.m. 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.
Image credit: NASA/MSFC/Aaron Kingery
NASA will host a Google+ Hangout Thursday, Nov. 28 to discuss Comet ISON’s journey through our solar system and what the public worldwide may see in the coming days as the comet traverses the sun on Thanksgiving Day.
Google+ Hangout will take place from 1-3:30 p.m. EST Thursday as scientists follow the journey of Comet ISON while it slingshots around the sun. Watch and ask questions as NASA solar physicists track the comet live from the mission control for NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) spacecraft during ISON’s closest approach to the sun.
The Hangout will be broadcast publicly on NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s YouTube and Google+ pages. The Hangout also will be carried live on NASA Television and the agency’s website.
Panelists for the Google+ Hangout are:
• C. Alex Young, solar physicist, associate director for Science in the Heliophysics Science Division and co-founder of The Sun Today – Goddard
• W. Dean Pesnell, solar physicist and project scientist for the Solar Dynamics Observatory – Goddard
• Karl Battams, comet scientist for the Naval Research Laboratory, Washington and solar spacecraft lead for NASA’s Comet ISON Observing Campaign, joining from Kitt Peak Observatory in Ariz., where the solar telescope will be observing ISON
• Phil Plait, writes Slate’s ‘Bad Astronomy’ blog and is an astronomer, science evangelizer and author of the books “Bad Astronomy” and “Death from the Skies!”
Read: Comet ISON, Viewing information and Images
NASA scientists will answer the public’s questions live on air on Google+, in the YouTube comments section during the live broadcast, or via Twitter using #ISON and #askNASA.
To join the Hangout, visit:
