Astronomy news update from NASA :
It isn't every night that a comet passes a galaxy. Last Thursday, though, binocular comet
C/2018 Y1 (Iwamoto) moved nearly in front of a spiral galaxy of approximately the same brightness:
NGC 2903.
Comet Iwamoto was discovered late last year and orbits
the Sun in a long
ellipse. It last visited the inner Solar System during the
Middle Ages, around the year 648.
The comet reached its closest point to the Sun -- between Earth and Mars -- on February 6, and its closest point to
Earth a few days ago, on February 13. The
featured time-lapse video condenses almost three hours into about ten seconds, and was captured last week from
Switzerland. At that time
Comet Iwamoto, sporting a
green coma, was about 10 light minutes distant, while spiral galaxy
NGC 2903 remained about 30 million
light years away. Two satellites zip diagonally through the field about a third of the way through the video. Typically,
a few comets each year become as bright as
Comet Iwamoto.
from NASA https://go.nasa.gov/2Egfnjp
via
IFTTT
