We’re all about marveling at the spectacle of space, so when a comet swings around our corner of the solar system at 60 miles per second, it’s time to grab popcorn. In early 2007, Comet McNaught—otherwise known as the Great Comet of 1744—shot across our atmospheric stage. Unlike your typical comet with a single defined tail, McNaught sported multiple tails that fanned out across the sky. Astronomers have been relying on observatories and spacecraft to study the comet’s interactions with solar wind and magnetic field to better understand what might make the tail fan out. Now, thanks to new image processing from University College London that combines all that data, we’re beginning to untangle the secrets of McNaught’s striations and the Sun’s role in shaping comet dust. Holy space cloud! Look in the upper right of this image of the Serpens Nebula, located 1,200 light years from Earth, for the cone-like shadows that resemble the Bat Signal. Turns out that a debris ring of dust, rock, and ice surrounding a bright young star called HBC 672 is casting dark shadows on the surrounding gas—earning itself the nickname “Bat Shadow.” Astronomers believe this region right now is a good analog to what our solar system was like when it was but 2 billion years old. They study shadows like these to detect particle size of dust and gas, and to learn whether the HBC 672 is in the early stages of eventually forming planets. It’s always bittersweet to hear about the… [Read full story]
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