comet 252P/LINEAR tagged posts

Comet 252P/LINEAR is shown as it passed by Earth. Credit: NASA, ESA, and J.-Y. Li (Planetary Science Institute)

This sequence of images by Hubble shows Comet 252P/LINEAR as it passed by Earth. The visit was one of the closest encounters between a comet and our planet. The images were taken on April 4, 2016, ~2 weeks after the icy visitor made its closest approach to Earth on March 21. The comet traveled within 3.3 million miles of Earth, or about 14X the distance between our planet and the moon. These observations also represent the closest celestial object Hubble has observed, other than the moon.

The images reveal a narrow, well-defined jet of dust ejected by the comet’s icy, fragile nucleus. The nucleus is too small for Hubble to resolve. Astronomers estimate that it is <1 mile across...

Comet 252P/LINEAR will safely fly past Earth on March 21, 2016, at a range of about 3.3 million miles (5.2 million kilometers). The following day, comet P/2016 BA14 will safely fly by our planet at a distance of about 2.2 million miles (3.5 million kilometers). Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Two comets that will safely fly past Earth later this month may have more in common than their intriguingly similar orbits. They may be twins of a sort. Comet P/2016 BA14 was discovered on Jan. 22, 2016, by the University of Hawaii’s PanSTARRS telescope on Haleakala, on the island of Maui...