Hubble image archive
Comet 332P/Ikeya-Murakami
This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image reveals the ancient Comet 332P/Ikeya-Murakami disintegrating as it approaches the sun. The observations represent one of the sharpest views of an icy comet breaking apart.The comet debris consists of a cluster of building-size chunks near th...
- Date
- Jan 1, 2016
- Mission
- Hubble Space Telescope
- Archive ID
- hubblesite-images-2016-35-3784-image
This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image reveals the ancient Comet 332P/Ikeya-Murakami disintegrating as it approaches the sun. The observations represent one of the sharpest views of an icy comet breaking apart.
The comet debris consists of a cluster of building-size chunks near the center of the image. They form a 3,000-mile-long trail, larger than the width of the continental U.S. The fragments are drifting away from the comet, dubbed Comet 332P, at a leisurely pace, roughly the walking speed of an adult.
The main nucleus of Comet 332P is the bright object at lower left. It measures 1,600 feet across, about the length of five football fields.
Hubble spied the debris on Jan. 26, 27, and 28, 2016, when the comet was 150 million miles from the sun, slightly beyond the orbit of Mars. The 4.5-billion-year-old comet, which originated from the Kuiper Belt, probably shed the debris over a short period of time, from October to December 2015.
The comet shards brighten and dim as icy patches on their surfaces rotate into and out of sunlight. The icy relics, totaling about 25 pieces, comprise about 4 percent of the comet and range in size from roughly 65 feet wide to 200 feet wide.
The tiny white dot just above the comet may be another fragment, signaling the beginning of another outburst. These observations provide insight into the volatile behavior of comets as they approach the sun and begin to vaporize, unleashing dynamical forces.
This image was taken on Jan. 27, 2016, with Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3.
Credits
NASA, ESA, and D. Jewitt (UCLA)Image Details
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | Comet 332P/Ikeya-Murakami |
| Object Description | Short-period comet |
| Distance | The position of the comet changes as it and Earth travel on their orbits through the solar system. The comet was approximately 0.68 AU (67 million miles or 100 million kilometers) from Earth at the time of these observations. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description | Data were provided through HST proposal : D. Jewitt (UCLA), M. Mutchler (STScI), H. Weaver (JHU/APL), J. Agarwal (MPI), M.-T. Hui (UCLA), M. Ishiguro (Seoul National Univ.), J. Li (UCLA), and J. Kleyna, K. Meech, R. Wainscoat, and R. Weryk (Univ. Hawaii). |
| Instrument | HST>WFC3/UVIS |
| Exposure Dates | January 26, 27, 28, 2016; Exposure Time: 100 minutes total exposure |
| Filters | F350LP 350nm (long pass) |
| About The Image | |
| Color Info | Several images of Comet 332P were made by HST's WFC3/UVIS instrument on three consecutive days with a single filter, F350LP. The exposures from each day were combined into a single image. Color was added to the combined grayscale images using a color mapping. |
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Source
Image and source material are credited to the official mission archive linked below.
View on NASA.gov