This comet was discovered by Robert McNaught, an Australian professional astronomer, last August. This is the brightest comet in our skies in 40 years. McNaught's Comet is considerably brighter than the Halley's Comet, last visible from the earth in 1986.
McNaught's Comet is five times closer to the sun than the earth and four times closer to the sun than Halley's Comet was when it was last seen. The comet is basically a dirty snowball, made up of mixtures of dust, frozen water and frozen methane. When the sunlight hits the comet it boils the stuff off and what you actually see is all the steam coming off the comet and not the comet itself. Comets don't shine by their own light. They shine by reflecting light off of the sun.
The comet is estimated to be 300 metres across but the surrounding fuzzy 'coma' is up to 100, 000kms across. The tail may be up to 3 million kms long.
2 comments:
when we went to mexico last september i saw this light in the sky it was like a falling star ,i thought i was seeing things but (michelle that was one of the other couple we went with saw it as well) it lasted for about 10 seconds. when i was coming home from work last friday i saw the same thing againit was beautiful. when you work in the night you see some weid lights in the sky
hi dawn....are you sure it wasnt bill haley and his comet...s
Post a Comment