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Comet C/2016 R2 (PANSTARRS) on 19.01.2018 |
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Size: 1800 px | |||||||||||||||||||||||
© Velimir Popov & Emil Ivanov 2018 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
C/2016 R2 (PANSTARRS) was discovered on September 7, 2016, using the Pan-STARRS telescopes. The comet has recently attracted attention from many astronomers as it approaches its closest point to the sun in May 2018. It has a very complex tail, which has been suggested to be due to a fast rotation of the nucleus. The comet was called "the blue comet" because of the rare bluish colour, which is due to the unusually abundant ionized carbon monoxide (CO+) molecules fluorescing in the sunlight. |
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Image details: |
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Charts and image details obtained from Astrometry.net | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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Copyright: Velimir Popov and Emil Ivanov 2013 - 2018. All Rights Reserved | |||||||||||||||||||||||
e-mail: info@irida-observatory.org | |||||||||||||||||||||||