WASHINGTON, EU., Jan. 7. 2016.- The Catalina comet with the naked eye will see next week and then leave the solar system to travel the rest of interstellar space.
The Catalina ( C / 2013 US10), discovered on October 31, 2013, comes from the Oort Cloud, a vast reservoir of comets that exist in the outer solar system, a light-year away from the sun.
The Oort comets are coming from rocks of ice and dust that slowly roam spherical cloud that until something like the passage of a star or a collision including destabilize its orbit and allows the sun to draw them inside the System Solar.
Catalina is very interesting from an astronomical point of view, as this is the only time to study it because it carries such a high speed that the sun can not catch it, but will have a hyperbolic fall that will leave the solar system and interstellar space to roam for the rest of his life.
The comet passed closest to the Sun (perihelion) on November 15 point, 123 million kilometers distance from the star and, according to calculations, the moment of closest approach to Earth will be on January 17, when it will pass 108 million kilometers from the planet.
Catalina will be thoroughly studied by scientists with the help of ground-based telescopes will try to get “as much information as possible about their dynamic state, rotation, composition spectra, etc.
In general, comets are important because they are fossils of training the solar system and contain information on the origin of planetary systems.
Moreover, if the comet comes from the Oort cloud, as in this case, the scientific interest is even greater because they come from a primordial cloud system Solar and have information about their origin.
Although this comet will be visible until mid-February, the best time for observation will be next week.
In fact, as you can see but it will be much more visible as the moon disappears, the next 9, 10 and 11 January, and the 17th, will take place when its perigee (nearest point to earth).
If very dark sky to observe it will look like a green spot, because its nucleus is greenish, and with binoculars you can see some detail, as its two tails, ionic or other gases and dust.
Els
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