Monday, October 04, 2010

The Green Comet

Look, up in the sky! It's a bird, it's a plane, no--it's a green comet! The recently discovered Comet Hartley is coming to a sky near you. Right now it's visible through backyard telescopes and in some places (with very old-fashioned darkness at night) with the naked eye. (This is one skywatcher photo among many already.) It's a fairly small comet with a long tail, and it makes its closest encounter with Earth on October 20, so eventually it will be visible through binoculars at least in a lot of places. Then in November, a NASA craft has its close encounter with the comet, but just for photos . So from now on, look up (towards the constellation Cassiopeia) and think green.

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