This comet looks like a sprinkler twirling through space
A newly-released series of photos taken by the Hubble Space Telescope show never-before-seen details of a comet as it passed by Earth on April 4.
The comet, named 252P/LINEAR, appears to be spitting out a dust jet that is twirling like a sprinkler in space.
This means that the small nucleus of the comet may be spinning, according to a statement from the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Maryland, which runs the science program connected with Hubble.
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Comets are balls of ice and rock that are thought to be leftovers from the dawn of the solar system. They consist of icy bits of material that didn't get incorporated into planets billions of years ago when our cosmic neighborhood formed.
"A comet produces jets of material as it travels close to the sun in its orbit," STScI said.
"Sunlight warms ices in a comet's nucleus, resulting in large amounts of dust and gas being ejected, sometimes in the form of jets. The jet in the Hubble images is illuminated by sunlight."
Today, comets circle the sun, with some in long, elliptical orbits that bring them toward and away from the inner parts of the solar system.
Comet 252P/LINEAR is the closest object the Hubble has imaged aside from the moon, the STScI said, and the nucleus of the comet is too small for the Hubble to see in any detail, meaning that it's probably less than 1 mile across.
The comet made its closest approach with the planet about two weeks before these observations, when it flew within 3.3 million miles of Earth in late March.
During the close pass, the comet created quite a stir on the planet as well.
Professional astronomers and amateur skywatchers watched as the comet brightened to more than 100 times more luminous than originally expected, according to Sky and Telescope magazine.
The comet will come back into the inner solar system in 2021, but it won't be close to Earth during that pass, according to STScI.
“Comet 252P is one of the smallest comets we know of. Our main goal is to determine its size and study how comets become smaller and smaller as they pass around the sun," scientist Jian-Yang Li said in a statement.
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Miriam Kramer worked as a staff writer for Space.com for about 2.5 years before joining Mashable to cover all things outer space. She took a ride in weightlessness on a zero-gravity flight and watched rockets launch to space from places around the United States. Miriam received her Master's degree in science, health and environmental reporting from New York University in 2012, and she originally hails from Knoxville, Tennessee. Follow Miriam on Twitter at @mirikramer.
