Although not as well known as Halley’s Comet, this giant snowball space At least one astronomer has been fascinated by the tail’s changing shape each summer night.
Dan Bartlett, an astrophotographer based in east-central California, captured Comet Olbers zigzagging across the night sky this week. But every time he looked up with his binoculars or camera, Comet It takes a different form.
“This is the first time that we’ve been able to witness this organism in action with modern technology,” Bartlett told Mashable. “This comet must have been a very strange organism.”
Comet experts say that while the sharp bend in Olbers’ tail may look odd to the layman, the cause of its jagged appearance is a well-understood phenomenon.
Astronaut photographs strange rainbow cloud at edge of space
A comet is a huge sphere, Ice, dust, rocks It was formed in the outer solar system and is a remnant from the early stages of planetary formation about 4.6 billion years ago. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)The ice begins to crumble as it approaches the water surface. SunIt changes from a solid to a gas instantly, without going through a liquid state. This process Their distinctive tailsa trail of wreckage stretching for millions of miles.
Hundreds of years ago, people viewed comets as bad omens. Today, scientists see these icy objects as time capsules of the ancient solar system. Some astronomers believe comets delivered water and organic compounds. Building Blocks of Life — to the early Earth.
Along with their dust tails, comets also drag tails of plasma, sometimes with a bluish hue, into the sky. The plasma tails, which look a bit like the Harry Potter lightning bolts seen in Bartlett’s photo, are made up of ionized gas molecules. These charged particles are susceptible to changes in solar activity, says Henry Hsieh, a research scientist at the Planetary Science Institute.
Mashable Lightspeed
According to astrophotographer Dan Bartlett, who captured this image on July 4, 2024, Comet Olbers’ plasma tail looks different every night.
Credit: Dan Bartlett
He likens the solar wind to a river that constantly flows away from the Sun.
“The ion tail is basically caught in that river,” Shay told Mashable. “Most of the time, we see a straight tail, but every once in a while, we get a little snag on the Sun, and we have a coronal mass ejection event, where a particularly large, dense chunk of material is ejected outward.”
Coronal mass ejectionPlasma erupting from the outer layers of the sun’s atmosphere accompanies giant solar eruptions. When viewed through a solar telescope, the eruptions look like fans of gas shooting off into space. NASA likens these eruptions to cannon balls hurtling in one direction, impacting only the targeted area.
“If this thing were to hit a comet, it would disrupt this beautiful river,” Shea said. “It’s almost like the rocks suddenly break apart and the river suddenly speeds up for just a split second.”
On July 29, 2024, Comet Olbers will appear to have a zigzag plasma tail.
Credit: Dan Bartlett
Right now, the sun is nearing the peak of its 11-year solar cycle, making its magnetic field more chaotic. As the comet experiences these changes as it moves through the solar system, its tail will continue to try to readjust, resulting in these twists and turns, said Tony Farnham, an astronomer at the University of Maryland.
“In some cases, the comet passes through an area where the magnetic field changes direction completely (called a sector boundary), causing the plasma tail to ‘detach’ from the comet and then a new tail to form over the next few days,” Farnham said in an email.
Officially named 13P/Olbers, the comet is named after the German astronomer Heinrich Olbers, who first observed it in 1815. The comet was last observed from Earth in 1956.
Comet Olbers is currently returning to the so-called Oort Cloud, a region thought to be a sphere of icy objects at the outer edge of the solar system.
Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech Illustration
Comet Olbers was closest to the Sun on June 30, but is now known as Oort Cloud It lies in the outer reaches of our solar system, and its strangely warped tail is likely the result of an active comet reacting to the Sun’s violent movements, but too little is known about this particular visitor to rule out the possibility that there could be something else inherently unusual about it.
This is the first time in modern times that astronomers have had the opportunity to study a comet up close and at the peak of its activity, Shea said. Astronomers will know more as they complete their analysis in the coming months.
“Every comet is like a different creature,” he says, “and every one is special, which is what makes them so fun to study.”
