NASA’s STEREO Spacecraft Spots Comets ISON and Encke

As comets ISON and Encke continue toward their respective rendezvous with the Sun, they have now both been captured on camera by NASA’s solar-observing STEREO spacecraft. The image above, taken on Nov. 21 (UT) with STEREO-A’s high-resolution HI-1 camera, shows ISON as it enters the field of view from the left. Encke is at center, while the planets Mercury and Earth (labeled) are bright enough to cause vertical disruptions in the imaging sensors. (The Sun is off frame to the right.)

As cool as this image is, it gets even better: there’s a video version. Check it out below:

Animation of STEREO-A images acquired on Nov. 20-21 (Karl Battams/NASA/STEREO/CIOC)

The dark “clouds” coming from the right are density enhancements in the solar wind, causing all the ripples in comet Encke’s tail. (Source)

The position of NASA’s STEREO spacecraft relative to Earth and the Sun on Nov. 22

It’s fascinating to watch how the solar wind shapes and affects the tail of comet Encke… as ISON moves further into view, I’m sure we’ll see similar disruptions in its tail as well. (And look what STEREO-A saw happen to Encke’s tail back in 2007!)

Encke reached the perihelion of its 3.3-year-long orbit on Nov. 21; newcomer ISON will arrive at its on Nov. 28. While it seems to be holding together quite well in these STEREO images, what happens when it comes within 730,000 miles of the Sun next week is still anybody’s guess.

Read more: Whoa, Take a Look at Comet ISON Now!

Jason Major

A graphic designer in Rhode Island, Jason writes about space exploration on his blog Lights In The Dark, Discovery News, and, of course, here on Universe Today. Ad astra!

Recent Posts

Did Supernovae Help Push Life to Become More Diverse?

Life on Earth has been around for a long time—at least 3.8 billion years. During…

4 hours ago

Another Look at the Aftermath of DART's Impact Into Dimorphos

When the DART spacecraft slammed into asteroid Dimorphos on September 26, 2022, telescopes worldwide (and…

8 hours ago

A New Mission Will Search for Habitable Planets at Alpha Centauri

The TOLIMAN space telescope will search for exoplanets next door, and has contracted with EnduroSat…

1 day ago

Machine Learning Finds 140,000 Future Star Forming Regions in the Milky Way

Our galaxy is still actively making stars. We've known that for a while, but sometimes…

1 day ago

If Titan Has the Chemistry For Life, Dragonfly Could Find it

The highly-anticipated Dragonfly robotic rotocraft mission to Saturn's moon Titan is scheduled to launch in…

1 day ago

JWST Sees Organic Molecules Swirling Around a Newborn Star

One of the most interesting questions we can ask is, "How did life form?". To…

2 days ago