Stig Östlund

onsdag, december 05, 2018

A COMET AS BIG AS THE FULL MOON:

On Dec. 16th, Comet 46P/Wirtanenwill approach Earth less than 11.5 million km away–making it one of the 10 closest-approaching comets of the Space Age. It's a small comet, with a nucleus barely 1 km wide, but such proximity makes even a small things appear large. The comet's gaseous atmosphere is now as wide as a full Moon. Mike Broussard of Perry, Louisiana, photographed the comet on Dec. 2nd and inserted the Moon for scale:



"The comet still has a couple of weeks before closest approach and it is already as big as a full Moon," says Broussard, who could see the comet with his naked eye--"just barely using averted vision and only when it was in the darkest section of the sky," he adds.

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