NASA photographed the Christmas comet shining in the night sky with a telescope.

20 18 to 12, which is especially friendly to astronomy lovers. Because of the overactive 46P/Wirtanen (Christmas Comet), a historic close flight is being carried out. As the saying goes, the advantage lies in the moon, and NASA, which has powerful telescopes, can broadcast its latest progress for us in all directions with the help of Hubble, Chandra X-ray Observatory and Neil gayles Swift. As Christmas approached, NASA sent us beautiful photos of this holiday comet at the right time.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration/ESA /D. Bodewits (Auburn University)/J.-Y. Li (Institute of Planetary Science)

The above picture was taken by Hubble's wide field camera (WFC3) on the night of 65438+February 65438+March. At that time, 46P/Wirtanen was about 7.4 million miles away from the Earth (120,000 km).

Although it has been spit out as "ghostly green", the post-processing has been painted blue.

The nucleus of a comet is hidden in a blue halo (composed of gas and rock). When passing through the solar system, the comet becomes hot, releasing the trapped gas into the surrounding space and emitting a glow.

Because 46P/Wirtanen is close to the Earth, astronomers can study its specific structure. And what happens to the gas inside in the sun.

In addition, with the help of the Infrared Astronomical Stratosphere Observatory (SOFIA), when the comet approached 65438+February 65438+June 6, NASA took photos when it passed the earth at a height of 40000 feet (1.22 million meters).

Sophia's main task is to study the water in comets. Many astronomers believe that water resources on earth may come from comets and asteroids.

Although 46P/Wirtanen is far away from the earth, you can still catch a glimpse of it in the night sky if you look carefully.

[compiled from: Cnet]