#c2016r2

[apod]

2018 January 18

Blue Comet in the Hyades Image Credit & Copyright: Rogelio Bernal Andreo (Deep Sky Colors)

Explanation: Stars of the Hyades cluster are scattered through this mosaic spanning over 5 degrees on the sky toward the constellation Taurus. Presently cruising through the Solar System, the remarkably blue comet C/2016 R2 PanSTARRS is placed in the wide field of view using image data from January 12. With the apex of the V-shape in the Hyades cluster positioned near the top center, bright Aldebaran, alpha star of Taurus, anchors the frame at the lower right. A cool red giant, Aldebaran is seen in orange hues in the colorful starfield. While the stars of the Hyades are gathered 151 light-years away, Aldebaran lies only 65 light-years distant and so is separate from the cluster stars. On January 12, C/2016 R2 was over 17 light-minutes from planet Earth and nearly 24 light-minutes from the Sun. Its blue tinted tail largely due to CO+ gas fluorescing in sunlight, the head or coma of the comet appears with a slightly greenish hue, likely emission from diatomic carbon.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap180118.html

[technologies115-blog]

#CometsOfinstagram #CometPanstarrs #Panstarrs #Comets #C2016R2 #GammaTauri #Taurus PanSTARRS (C/2016 R2) passes just 18′ west of Gamma (γ) Tauri on January 5th. This particular The comet is relatively close to us -- it was only about 143 million miles (230 million kilometers) from Earth when this picture was taken. It is seen passing a much more distant spiral galaxy, called #NGC3726, which is about 55 million light-years from Earth, or 2 trillion times farther away than the comet.See Comet Pan-STARRS March 12 - 16 #CometPanstarrsSeria #PanstarrsSeria #C2016R2seria #GammaTauriSeria #TaurusSeria #CometsSeria #CometSeria #KuyrukluYildizlarSeria #MarchCosmosSeria #12MarchCosmosSeria #2013CosmosSeria #CosmosSeria #12March2013seria #12MarchSeria #2013MarchSeria (Mean Green Comet Debate Institute)

[wigmund]

From Astronomy Picture of the Day; February 12, 2018:

Blue Comet Meets Blue Stars Tom Masterson (Transient Astronomer)

What's that heading for the Pleiades star cluster? It appears to be Comet C/2016 R2 (PanSTARRS), but here, appearances are deceiving. On the right and far in the background, the famous Pleiades star cluster is dominated by blue light from massive young stars. On the left and visiting the inner Solar System is Comet PanSTARRS, a tumbling block of ice from the outer Solar System that currently sports a long ion tail dominated by blue light from an unusually high abundance of ionized carbon monoxide. Comet PanSTARRS is actually moving toward the top of the image, and its ion tail points away from the Sun but is affected by a complex solar wind of particles streaming out from the Sun. Visible through a small telescope, the comet is fading as it recedes from the Earth, even though it reaches its closest point to the Sun in early May.