This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image of Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) was photographed on April 10, when the comet was slightly closer than Jupiter's orbit at a distance of 386 million miles from the Sun (394 million miles from Earth).
Even at that great distance the comet is already active as sunlight warms the surface and causes frozen volatiles to sublimate. A detailed analysis of the dust coma surrounding the solid, icy nucleus reveals a strong jet blasting dust particles off the sunward-facing side of the comet's nucleus.
This image was taken in visible light with Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3. The blue false color was added to bring out details in the comet's structure.
Credits
NASA, ESA, J.-Y. Li (Planetary Science Institute), and the Hubble Comet ISON Imaging Science Team| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | Comet ISON |
| Object Description | Comet |
| Distance | At the time of the Hubble observation, the comet was 4.15 astronomical units (386 million miles) from the Sun. The comet was 4.24 astronomical units (394 million miles) from Earth. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description | The image was created from Hubble data from proposal : J.-Y. Li (Planetary Science Institute), P. Lamy (Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille), H. Weaver (JHU/APL), M. A'Hearn and M. Kelley (University of Maryland), M. Knight (Lowell Observatory), T. Farnham (University of Maryland), and I. Toth (Hungarian Academy of Sciences). |
| Instrument | HST>WFC3/UVIS |
| Exposure Dates | April 10, 2013 |
| Filters | F606W (V) |
| About The Image | |
| Color Info | This image was originally black and white and recorded only overall brightness. These brightness values were translated into a range of bluish hues. Such color "maps" can be useful in helping to distinguish subtly varying brightness in an image. |
| Compass Image |  |
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | A name or catalog number that astronomers use to identify an astronomical object. |
| Object Description | The type of astronomical object. |
| R.A. Position | Right ascension – analogous to longitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Dec. Position | Declination – analogous to latitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Constellation | One of 88 recognized regions of the celestial sphere in which the object appears. |
| Distance | The physical distance from Earth to the astronomical object. Distances within our solar system are usually measured in Astronomical Units (AU). Distances between stars are usually measured in light-years. Interstellar distances can also be measured in parsecs. |
| Dimensions | The physical size of the object or the apparent angle it subtends on the sky. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description |
|
| Instrument | The science instrument used to produce the data. |
| Exposure Dates | The date(s) that the telescope made its observations and the total exposure time. |
| Filters | The camera filters that were used in the science observations. |
| About The Image | |
| Image Credit | The primary individuals and institutions responsible for the content. |
| Publication Date | The date and time the release content became public. |
| Color Info | A brief description of the methods used to convert telescope data into the color image being presented. |
| Orientation | The rotation of the image on the sky with respect to the north pole of the celestial sphere. |
