The spherical coma of Comet Holmes has swollen to a diameter of over 1.4 "million" kilometers, making the tenuous, dusty cloud even bigger than the Sun [
http://www.ifa.hawa…]. Scattering sunlight, all that dust and gas came from the comet's remarkably active nucleus [
http://hubblesite.o…40/image/a/ ], whose diameter before the late October outburst [
http://antwrp.gsfc.…] was estimated to be a mere 3.4 kilometers. In this sharp image, recorded on November 14 with the Canada-France-Hawaii [
http://antwrp.gsfc.…] Telescope, stars are easily visible right through the outer coma [
http://www.nasa.gov…], while the nucleus is buried [
http://hubblesite.o…40/image/a/format/we b_print/ ] inside the condensed, bright region. The bright region [
http://hubblesite.o…40/image/d/ ] of the coma seems offset from the center, consistent with the idea that a large fragment drifted away from the nucleus and disintegrated, producing the comet's spectacular outburst. Of course, more recent images [
http://spaceweather…] of Holmes also show the bright star Mirfak (Alpha Persei) shining through as the comet sweeps slowly through the constellation Perseus [ http://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Perseus_(co nstellation) ].
Explanation
The spherical coma of Comet Holmes has swollen to a diameter of over 1.4 "million" kilometers, making the tenuous, dusty cloud even bigger than the Sun [
http://www.ifa.hawa…]. Scattering sunlight, all that dust and gas came from the comet's remarkably active nucleus [
http://hubblesite.o…40/image/a/ ], whose diameter before the late October outburst [
http://antwrp.gsfc.…] was estimated to be a mere 3.4 kilometers. In this sharp image, recorded on November 14 with the Canada-France-Hawaii [
http://antwrp.gsfc.…] Telescope, stars are easily visible right through the outer coma [
http://www.nasa.gov…], while the nucleus is buried [
http://hubblesite.o…40/image/a/format/we b_print/ ] inside the condensed, bright region. The bright region [
http://hubblesite.o…40/image/d/ ] of the coma seems offset from the center, consistent with the idea that a large fragment drifted away from the nucleus and disintegrated, producing the comet's spectacular outburst. Of course, more recent images [
http://spaceweather…] of Holmes also show the bright star Mirfak (Alpha Persei) shining through as the comet sweeps slowly through the constellation Perseus [ http://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Perseus_(co nstellation) ].
Explanation
