Comet Hale-Bopp Near the Sun

Credit: SOHO/ESA/NASA · Download full size image

SWAN observed a huge cloud of hydrogen, 70 times the size of the Sun, that surrounded Comet Hale-Bopp when it neared the Sun. Ultra violet light, charted by SWAN in 1997, revealed a cloud 100 million kilometres w ide and diminishing in intensity outwards (contour lines). The cloud was generat ed by a comet nucleus perhaps only about 40 kilometres in diameter. The yellow c ircle (lower right) gives the size of the Sun. Solar rays broke up water vapor r eleased from the comet by the Sun’s warmth. The resulting hydrogen atoms shone by ultraviolet light invisible from the Earth's surface. Posted on: 31 Mar, 2003

• Hubble Space Telescope
• Chandra X-ray Observatory
• Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory
• ROSAT X-ray Observatory
• SOHO Solar Observatory
• WMAP
• 2MASS Sky Survey
• ASTER Earth Imaging Instrument
• MISR Earth Imaging Instrument
• NRAO Gallery
• NAOJ Subaru Telescope
• Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX)
• European Southern Observatory (ESO)
• Wide-Field Imager (WFI)
• SOFI Infrared Multi-mode Instrument
• Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT)
• New Technology Telescope (NTT)
• Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX)
• SOHO Daily Images - 1996
• Spitzer Space Telescope (SIRTF)
• Infrared Legacy Gallery

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