Sunday, April 7, 2013

andromeda and comet panstarrs

here are some absolutely beautiful photos of comet panstarrs, currently the largest object in our solar system, and the distant andromeda galaxy that just happens to be sitting behind the comet in our current line of sight.   the fuzzy tail of panstarrs is about 15 times the diameter of our sun right now - remember that you can fit 100 earth's across the diameter of the sun. 

that is a HUGE comet!   no one was sure how bright or big the comet would get as it passed by the sun, because it's impossible to tell how much water a comet holds that could get melted, spread out in the tail, and then illuminated by our bright star.    here's to a pleasant surprise!

Credit: Rogelio Bernal Andreo

Credit: Pavel Smilyk

2 comments:

heroineworshipper said...

What lucky shots & luck that someone in the world was looking.

Sakib said...

I'm guessing that not too much luck was involved! Interested astrophotographers would have easily been able to find out the comet's position in the sky at what time and take an image at the right time.