Comet Lulin is On the Way!

By Nancy Atkinson - January 14, 2009 12:48 PM UTC | Planetary Science

[/caption] A new comet is swinging around the sun, and soon it will be more visible to stargazers, perhaps even with the naked eye. Both professional and amateur astronomers have been tracking this unusual comet, named Comet Lulin. Thanks to amateur astronomer Gregg Ruppel, who lives in the St. Louis, Missouri area for sharing images he has acquired of Comet Lulin. Gregg took the image above on January 11, 2009. The most interesting characteristic of this comet is its orbit. Lulin is actually moving in the opposite direction as the planets, so its apparent velocity will be quite fast. Estimates are it will be moving about 5 degrees a day across the sky, so when viewed with a telescope or binoculars, you may be able to see the comet's apparent motion against the background stars. This is quite unusual! Today, January 14, the comet is at perihelion, closest to the sun. As it moves to its closest approach to Earth on February 24, Lulin is expected to brighten to naked-eye visibility in rural areas, (at best about magnitude 5 or 6) and will be observable low in the sky in an east-southeast direction before dawn.

[caption id="attachment_23593" align="aligncenter" width="580" caption="Comet Lulin on January 8, 2009. Credit: Gregg Ruppel"]

[/caption] The comet will pass 0.41 Astronomical Units from earth at its closest distance to Earth, about 14.5 times the distance between the Earth and the Moon. It has a parabolic trajectory, which means it may have never come this way before --this may be its first visit to the inner solar system

Lulin was jointly discovered by Asian astronomers in July of 2007. Quanzhi Ye from China first saw the comet on images obtained by Chi-Sheng Lin from Taiwan, at the Lu-lin Observatory.

The discovery of Comet Lulin (also known as C/

2227

2007 N3) was part of the Lulin Sky Survey project to explore the various populations of small bodies in the solar system, especially objects that could be a hazard to the Earth.

It has both a tail and an anti-tail, visible in this image.
[caption id="attachment_23594" align="aligncenter" width="580" caption="Lulin's Tails. Credit: Gregg Ruppel."]

[/caption]

Thanks again to Gregg Ruppel for the great images of Comet Lulin. For more information about Lulin, see Gregg's Astronomy Page,

Quanzhi Ye's page,

Lu-lin Observatory

, and the

Visual Astronomy website.

Spaceweather.com also has a page of Lulin images.

. And Aaron Slack has put together a page of links about Comet Lulin on his Caffeinated Astronomy blog. (Love the name of that blog!)

Of course, Lulin isn't the pseudoscience theory of a

2012 comet

.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com