Subj : Daily APOD Report To : All From : Ben Ritchey Date : Thu Nov 15 2018 10:26:45 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 November 15 [2] Comet 46P/Wirtanen Image Credit & Copyright [3] : Alex Cherney (Terrastro [4] , TWAN [5] ) Explanation: Periodic Comet 46P/Wirtanen [6] is now the brightest comet in the night sky, but too faint to be seen by eye. From dark sky sites it could just become naked-eye visible though, as it's 5.4 year long looping orbit takes it closest to Earth [7] and the Sun in mid December. Fluorescing in sunlight [8] , its spherical coma is about half the angular size of a full moon in this southern hemisphere telescopic view from November 7 [9] . Then the comet was about 2 light-minutes away or 35 million kilometers from Earth-bound telescopes, so the pretty greenish coma seen here is around 150,000 kilometers across. That makes it about the size of Jupiter. The stack of digital images also reveals a very faint tail extending toward 4 o'clock with a distant background galaxy notable at the upper left. As a regular visitor to the inner Solar System, comet 46P/Wirtanen was once the favored rendezvous target for ESA's comet exploring Rosetta mission [10] . Tomorrow's picture: look up ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- < [11] | Archive [12] | Submissions [13] | Index [14] | Search [15] | Calendar [16] | RSS [17] | Education [18] | About APOD [19] | Discuss [20] | > [21] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff [22] (MTU [23] ) & Jerry Bonnell [24] (UMCP [25] ) NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply [26] . NASA Web Privacy Policy and Important Notices [27] A service of: ASD [28] at NASA [29] / GSFC [30] & Michigan Tech. U. [31] ---------- Site notes: [1] archivepix.html [2] image/1811/46PCherney_NoText.jpg [3] lib/about_apod.html#srapply [4] http://www.terrastro.com/about/ [5] http://www.twanight.org/cherney/ [6] https://earthsky.org/space/ 46p-wirtanen-possibly-visible-to-eye-dec-2018 [7] https://science.nasa.gov/news-articles/ close-approach-comets [8] ap130207.html [9] image/1811/46PCherney_small.jpg [10] http://sci.esa.int/rosetta/14615-comet-67p/ [11] ap181114.html [12] archivepix.html [13] lib/apsubmit2015.html [14] lib/aptree.html [15] https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/apod/apod_search [16] calendar/allyears.html [17] /apod.rss [18] lib/edlinks.html [19] lib/about_apod.html [20] http://asterisk.apod.com/discuss_apod.php?date=181115 [21] ap181116.html [22] http://www.phy.mtu.edu/faculty/Nemiroff.html [23] http://www.phy.mtu.edu/ [24] https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/jbonnell/www/bonnell.html [25] http://www.astro.umd.edu/ [26] lib/about_apod.html#srapply [27] https://www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/HP_Privacy.html [28] https://astrophysics.gsfc.nasa.gov/ [29] https://www.nasa.gov/ [30] https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/ [31] http://www.mtu.edu/ --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A39 (Windows/32) * Origin: FIDONet - The Positronium Repository (1:393/68) .