Astronomy Picture of the Day

                         Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! [1] Each day a different image or photograph of our
 fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a
                           professional astronomer.

                                2018 December 7
                                      [2]
                          December's Comet Wirtanen
  Image Credit & Copyright [3] : Juan Carlos Casado [4] (TWAN [5] , Earth and
                                  Stars [6] )

Explanation: Coming close in mid-December, Comet 46P Wirtanen [7] hangs in
this starry sky over the bell tower of a Romanesque church. In the constructed
vertical panorama, a series of digital exposures capture its greenish coma [8]
on December 3 from Sant Llorenc de la Muga, Girona, Catalonia, Spain, planet
Earth. With an orbital period that is now about 5.4 years, the periodic
comet's perihelion, its closest approach, to the Sun will be on December 12.
On December 16 it will be closest to Earth, passing at a distance of about
11.6 million kilometers or 39 light-seconds. That's close for a comet [9] , a
mere 30 times the Earth-Moon distance. A good binocular target for comet
watchers [10] , Wirtanen could be visible to the unaided eye from a dark sky
site. To spot it after dusk on December 16, look close on the sky [11]  to the
Pleiades star cluster in Taurus.

                  Tomorrow's picture: Tiny Planet Timelapse

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    Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff [23] (MTU [24] ) & Jerry Bonnell [25]
                                  (UMCP [26] )
          NASA Official:  Phillip Newman Specific rights apply [27] .
              NASA Web Privacy Policy and Important Notices [28]
              A service of: ASD [29]  at NASA [30]  / GSFC [31]
                           & Michigan Tech. U. [32]
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Site notes:
  [1] archivepix.html
  [2] image/1812/031218_stllorenc_jcc.jpg
  [3] lib/about_apod.html#srapply
  [4] http://www.twanight.org/casado
  [5] http://www.twanight.org
  [6] http://starryearth.com/
  [7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/46P/Wirtanen
  [8] ap181115.html
  [9] http://wirtanen.astro.umd.edu/46P/46P_2018.shtml
  [10] https://earthsky.org/space/
46p-wirtanen-possibly-visible-to-eye-dec-2018
  [11] http://wirtanen.astro.umd.edu/46P/46P_finder_charts.shtml
  [12] ap181206.html
  [13] archivepix.html
  [14] lib/apsubmit2015.html
  [15] lib/aptree.html
  [16] https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/apod/apod_search
  [17] calendar/allyears.html
  [18] /apod.rss
  [19] lib/edlinks.html
  [20] lib/about_apod.html
  [21] http://asterisk.apod.com/discuss_apod.php?date=181207
  [22] ap181208.html
  [23] http://www.phy.mtu.edu/faculty/Nemiroff.html
  [24] http://www.phy.mtu.edu/
  [25] https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/jbonnell/www/bonnell.html
  [26] http://www.astro.umd.edu/
  [27] lib/about_apod.html#srapply
  [28] https://www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/HP_Privacy.html
  [29] https://astrophysics.gsfc.nasa.gov/
  [30] https://www.nasa.gov/
  [31] https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/
  [32] http://www.mtu.edu/

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