Astronomer Gianluca Masi captured spectacular images of a bright meteor trail enveloping the colossal tail of Comet Lemmon on October 24, as the solar system’s wandering body approached the constellation Serpens Caput in Earth’s sky.
Masi’s image captured the stream of ionized gas left in the meteor’s wake as it expanded and rose rapidly into the upper atmosphere to create a visually spectacular wave effect, which appeared to wrap around it. Kite Lemmon’s tail from our terrestrial perspective. A subtle fan-shaped pattern can also be seen undulating across the image, created when capricious light hits the camera sensor.
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“The phenomenon is associated with the ionization of molecular oxygen in the atmosphere caused by the meteorite event, followed by its recombination, which produces the emission of light at that wavelength,” Masi wrote in the Virtual Telescope Project website.
Under certain conditions, these bright trails Spirals may appear to form. in the upper atmosphere. But as intertwined as the two appear in the photo, Masi writes, the meteorite’s glow is actually quite far from Comet Lemmon’s tail. “In this photograph, the meteor’s glow appears to wrap around the comet’s ion tail: a pure miracle of perspective, as the former is an atmospheric effect induced by the meteor, while the comet was about 100 million kilometers away.”
Masi also launched a spectacular timelapse of the event captured between 1:37 pm (17:37 GMT) and 2:12 pm (18:12 GMT) on October 24, showing the meteor’s ion trail swirling around Comet Lemmon as satellites left trails across the image frames.
Comet Lemmon has brightened dramatically since its discovery in January earlier this year and is currently estimated to have a magnitude of about +4.2, according to the Comet Observing Database (COBS) managed by the Crni Vrh Observatory in Slovenia. Magnitude is the scale used to measure the apparent brightness of objects in the night sky. The lower the number, the brighter the object. That means it’s possible to detect the comet as a faint, hazy patch of light in dark-sky conditions, although a pair of 10X50 binoculars or a garden telescope will help detect its light!
Comet Lemmon can be found at the end of October. moving away from the Serpens constellation Caput towards the constellation Ophiuchusthe bearer of the serpent, before his approach to the sun on November 8.
Editor’s note: If you would like to share your image of Comet Lemmon with Space.com readers, please send your photos, comments, and your name and location to spacephotos@space.com.
