Astronomers analyzing debris from a comet that broke apart last summer spied pieces as small as smoke-sized particles and as large as football-field-sized fragments. But it’s the material they didn’t see that has aroused their curiosity. Tracking the doomed comet, named LINEAR, the Hubble telescope and the Very Large Telescope in Chile found tiny particles that made up the 2,000-mile-long dust tail and 16 large fragments, some as wide as 330 feet. But the telescopes didn’t detect any intermediate-sized pieces. If they exist, then the fundamental building blocks that comprised LINEAR’s nucleus may be somewhat smaller than current theories suggest. The Hubble picture shows that that LINEAR’s nucleus has been reduced to a shower of glowing “mini-comets” resembling the fiery fragments from an exploding aerial firework. This picture was taken with Hubble’s Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 on August 5, 2000, when the comet was at a distance of 64 million miles (102 million kilometers) from Earth.
Object Name:
Comet LINEAR
Acknowledgement:
*Credit:* NASA [ http://www.nasa.gov/] and Hal Weaver (The Johns Hopkins University)
Fast Facts:
Technical facts about this news release: About this Object Object Name: Comet LINEAR; C/1999 S4; (LINEARLincoln Laboratory Near-Earth Asteroid Research) Object Description: Comet Distance : The comet’s distance to the Sun at closest approach was 71 million miles (114 million km). About the Data Instrument: WFPC2; STIS Exposure Dates: July & August 2000 Exposure Time: ~ 2 hours Filters: WFPC2: F675W (R); STIS: F28X50LP Principal Astronomers: Comet LINEAR investigation team: H. Weaver and P. Feldman (JHU), M. A’Hearn (Univ. of Maryland), C. Arpigny (Liege Univ.), J. Bauer (Univ. of Hawaii), M. Combi (Univ. of Michigan), J. Davies (Joint Astronomy Centre), M. Festou (Observatoire Midi-Pyrenees), M. Keesey (JPL), P. Lamy (Laboratoire d’Astronomie Spatiale), C. Lisse (STScI), B. Marsden (SAO), K. Meech (Univ. of Hawaii), Z. Sekanina (JPL) , I. Toth (Konkoly Observatory) , G.-P. Tozzi (Arcetri Observatory), D. Yeomans (JPL).
note:
*Image Type:*: Astronomical
note:
*Release Date*:May 17, 2001 02:00 PM (EDT)
note:
*News Release Number:*: STScI-2001-14a
note:
*Title*:Astronomers Puzzled over Comet LINEAR’s Missing Pieces
facet_what:
Sun
facet_what:
Earth
facet_what:
Camera 2
facet_what:
COMETS
facet_what:
Wide Field Planetary Camera 2
facet_what:
Comet
facet_where:
Chile
facet_where:
Michigan
facet_where:
Hawaii
facet_where:
Maryland
facet_where:
Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
facet_when:
August 2000
facet_when:
May 17, 2001
facet_when:
August 5, 2000
facet_when_year:
2000
facet_when_year:
2001
UID:
SPD-HUBBLE-STScI-200 1-14a
original url:
http://hubblesite.o…
Release Date:
May 17, 2001 02:00 PM (EDT)
Image ID:
113745
Resolution Size:
4
Format:
JPEG
Media Type:
Image
File Name:
full_tif.jpg
Width:
836
Height:
614

Tags: Astronomers Puzzled over Comet LINEAR's Missing Pieces, galaxy, nasa, photo, space, star, Universe

This entry was posted on Monday, May 3rd, 2010 at 4:39 am and is filed under Photos, Universe. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.