The Tails of Comet Catalina This is comet C/2013 US10, also known as comet Catalina. Discovered
The Tails of Comet Catalina This is comet C/2013 US10, also known as comet Catalina. Discovered in October 2013 by the Catalina Sky Survey, comet Catalina was an Oort cloud object whose orbit brought it around the Sun last month.Due to its close encounter with the Sun at a distance of 0.82 astronomical units, comet Catalina has gained enough energy to boost its speed to 46.4 km/s, which is slightly more than the escape velocity of the Sun at that distance. This means that comet Catalina is moving fast enough to escape the gravitational pull of the Sun and eventually leave the Solar System.This inverted color image shows the comet’s two tails spectacularly; a dust tail pointing towards the lower left, and an ion tail in the upper right. The two tails form as the comet gets close to the Sun, where the Sun’s radiation causes the materials on the comet to vaporize. This produces a tail of dust that follows the comet’s orbit and a tail of gases that follows the solar wind.This particular image was taken by Gerald Rhemann at Jauerling mountain in Lower Austria on December 11th.Image Credit: Gerald Rhemann -- source link
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