Astronomy Picture of the Day

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

                                2020 July 11

                         The Tails of Comet NEOWISE
     Image Credit & Copyright: Miloslav Druckmuller (Brno University of
                                 Technology)

   Explanation: Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) is now sweeping through northern
   skies. Its developing tails stretch some six degrees across this
   telescopic field of view, recorded from Brno, Czech Republic before
   daybreak on July 10. Pushed out by the pressure of sunlight itself, the
   comet's broad, yellowish dust tail is easiest to see. But the image
   also captures a fainter, more bluish tail too, separate from the
   reflective comet dust. The fainter tail is an ion tail, formed as ions
   from the cometary coma are dragged outward by magnetic fields in the
   solar wind and fluoresce in the sunlight. In this sharp portrait of our
   new visitor from the outer Solar System, the tails of comet NEOWISE are
   reminiscent of the even brighter tails of Hale Bopp, the Great Comet of
   1997.

    Comet NEOWISE from Around the Globe: Notable Images Submitted to APOD
                    Tomorrow's picture: tales of Comet CG
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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