This is a series of Hubble Space Telescope pictures of comet C/2013 A1 Siding Spring as observed on Oct. 29, 2013; Jan. 21, 2014; and March 11, 2014. The distances from Earth were, respectively, 376 million miles, 343 million miles, and 353 million miles. The solid icy nucleus is too small to be resolved by Hubble, but it lies at the center of a dusty coma that is roughly 12,000 miles across in these images.
When the glow of the coma is subtracted through image processing, which incorporates a smooth model of the coma's light distribution, Hubble resolves what appear to be two jets of dust coming off the nucleus in opposite directions. The jets have persisted through the three Hubble visits, with their directions in the sky nearly unchanged. These visible-light images were taken with Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3.
Credits
NASA, ESA, and J.-Y. Li (Planetary Science Institute)| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | C/2013 A1 Siding Spring |
| Object Description | Comet |
| Distance | At the time of the Hubble observation on March 11, 2014, the comet was 3.28 astronomical units (305 million miles) from the Sun. The comet was 3.79 astronomical units (353 million miles) from Earth. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description | The image was created from Hubble data from proposal : J.-Y. Li (Planetary Science Institute), M. Kelley (University of Maryland), N. Samarasinha (Planetary Science Institute), C. Lisse (JHU/APL), T. Farnham and M. A'Hearn (University of Maryland), W. Delamere (Delamere Support Services), and M. Mutchler (STScI). |
| Instrument | HST>WFC3/UVIS |
| Exposure Dates | Oct. 29, 2013; Jan. 21, 2014; and March 11, 2014 |
| Filters | F606W (V) |
| About The 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. |
