Before Comet ISON was destroyed by its close approach to the Sun in November 2013, astronomers at UMBC contributed to a world-wide campaign to study the coma morphology of this comet. Using hundreds of images from around the globe, the velocity of micron-sized dust grains in the coma was found to be ~ 10 m/s, with lifetimes of a few weeks in distinct jets, before merging with the dust tail.
A few days after the image on the right was taken with the UMBC telescope, the comet was destroyed spectacularly during its close approach to the Sun.
Samarasinha, N., Mueller, B. E. A., Knight, M. M., Farnham, T. L., Briol, J., Brosch, N., Caruso, J., Gao, X., Gomez, E., Lister, T.,Hergenrother, C., Hoban, S., Prouty, R., Holloway, M., Howes, N., Guido, E., Hui, M., Jones, J. H., Penland, T. B., Thomas, S. R., Wyrosdick, J., Kiselev, N., Ivanova, A. V., Kaye, T. G., Kikwaya Eluo, J.-B., Lau, B. P.S., Lin, Z-Y., Luis Martin, J., Moskvitin, A. S., Nicolini, M., Ottum, B. D., Pruzenski, C., Vogel, D.C., Kellett, L., Rapson, V., Schmid, J., Doyle, B., Dimino, F., Carlino, S., Safonova, M., Murthy, J., Sutaria, F., Schleicher, D. G., Snodgrass, C., Tezcan, C. T., & Yorukoglu, O., Trowbridge, D., Whitmer, D., and Ye, Q-Z. (2015). Results from the worldwide coma morphology campaign for comet ISON (C/2012 S1). Planetary And Space Science, doi:10.1016/j.pss.2015.10.006
Image: 1200-sec image of Comet ISON in fluorescent emission from the CN radical at 387 nm.
A few days after the image on the right was taken with the UMBC telescope, the comet was destroyed spectacularly during its close approach to the Sun.
Samarasinha, N., Mueller, B. E. A., Knight, M. M., Farnham, T. L., Briol, J., Brosch, N., Caruso, J., Gao, X., Gomez, E., Lister, T.,Hergenrother, C., Hoban, S., Prouty, R., Holloway, M., Howes, N., Guido, E., Hui, M., Jones, J. H., Penland, T. B., Thomas, S. R., Wyrosdick, J., Kiselev, N., Ivanova, A. V., Kaye, T. G., Kikwaya Eluo, J.-B., Lau, B. P.S., Lin, Z-Y., Luis Martin, J., Moskvitin, A. S., Nicolini, M., Ottum, B. D., Pruzenski, C., Vogel, D.C., Kellett, L., Rapson, V., Schmid, J., Doyle, B., Dimino, F., Carlino, S., Safonova, M., Murthy, J., Sutaria, F., Schleicher, D. G., Snodgrass, C., Tezcan, C. T., & Yorukoglu, O., Trowbridge, D., Whitmer, D., and Ye, Q-Z. (2015). Results from the worldwide coma morphology campaign for comet ISON (C/2012 S1). Planetary And Space Science, doi:10.1016/j.pss.2015.10.006
Image: 1200-sec image of Comet ISON in fluorescent emission from the CN radical at 387 nm.
Posted: November 20, 2015, 12:02 PM
