Hubble image archive
Comet ISON
The sun-approaching Comet ISON floats against a seemingly infinite backdrop of numerous galaxies and a handful of foreground stars. The icy visitor, with its long gossamer tail, appears to be swimming like a tadpole through a deep pond of celestial wonders.In reality, the comet i...
- Date
- Jan 1, 2013
- Mission
- Hubble Space Telescope
- Archive ID
- hubblesite-images-2013-31-3226-image
The sun-approaching Comet ISON floats against a seemingly infinite backdrop of numerous galaxies and a handful of foreground stars. The icy visitor, with its long gossamer tail, appears to be swimming like a tadpole through a deep pond of celestial wonders.
In reality, the comet is much, much closer. The nearest star to the Sun is over 60,000 times farther away, and the nearest large galaxy to the Milky Way is over thirty billion times more distant. These vast dimensions are lost in this deep space Hubble exposure that visually combines our view of the universe from the very nearby to the extraordinarily far away.
Credits
Image
NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage Project (STScI, AURA)
Image Details
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | Comet ISON |
| Object Description | Comet |
| Distance | At the time of the Hubble observations on April 30, 2013, the comet was 3.9 astronomical units (363 million miles) from the Sun. The comet was 4.32 astronomical units (402 million miles) from Earth. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description | The image was created from Hubble data from proposal by the Hubble Heritage Team, PI: Z. Levay, M. Mutchler, C. Christian, L. Frattare, W. Januszewski, M. Livio, J. Mack, and J. Sokol (STScI/AURA), and K. Noll (NASA/GSFC). High-level science products for these data are available from the . |
| Instrument | HST>WFC3/UVIS |
| Exposure Dates | April 30, 2013 |
| Filters | F606W (V) and F814W (I) |
| About The Image | |
| Color Info | This image is a composite of separate exposures acquired by the WFC3/UVIS instrument. Several filters were used to sample various wavelengths. The color results from assigning different hues (colors) to each monochromatic (grayscale) image associated with an individual filter. In this case, the assigned colors are: Grayscale: F606W (V) (of comet) Cyan/blue: F606W (V) Red/orange: F814W (I) |
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Source
Image and source material are credited to the official mission archive linked below.
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