Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Comet ISON Caught Passing Gas, Soda-Pop Comet Is Fizzing




Before It's News | Popular Space





Comet ISON Caught Passing Gas, Soda-Pop Comet Is Fizzing



Astronomers using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have observed what most likely are strong carbon dioxide emissions from Comet ISON ahead of its anticipated pass through the inner solar system later this year. Images captured June 13 with Spitzer's Infrared Array Camera indicate carbon dioxide is slowly and steadily "fizzing" away from the so-called "soda-pop comet," along with dust, in a tail about 186,400 miles long. These images from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope of C/2012 S1 (Comet ISON) were taken on June 13, when ISON was 310 million miles (about 500 million kilometers) from the sun. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/JHUAPL/UCF "We estimate ISON is emitting about 2.2 million pounds of what is most likely carbon dioxide gas and about 120 million pounds of dust every day," said Carey Lisse, leader of NASA's Comet ISON Observation Campaign and a senior research scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md.






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