Flying to Earth, the comet showed his superhost

Something incredible is happening with comet PanSTARRS (C/2015 ER61). 4 and 5, APR its brilliance increased from +8.5 to +6,5, suddenly reaching the limit of visibility to the naked eye, despite its distance from our planet — 180 million kilometers.

Amateur astronomers in a hurry to capture space megapost. Gerald Rhemann took this photo from the Observatory Tivoli in Namibia. "Its length is about 2.5 degrees," says Remann.

This means that it covers more than 8 million kilometers. For comparison, all of the Sun's diameter is 1.4 million kilometers in diameter — that is almost double wrap the tail around the solar equator.

Another way to estimate the extent of the cometary tail to represent that the distance from the earth to the moon is only 5 % of the length of the gas strip PanSTARRS.

The flash of the comet, likely caused by fresh ice veined material in its core, which is exposed to solar radiation. Furiously evaporating nucleus of comet spewing jets of dust and gas into space, increasing the tail. This process should be accelerated as it approached the comet to the Sun until the beginning of may.

On April 19 the comet will approach the Earth on the minimum distance of 176 million kilometres and is well seen in homemade telescopes, if the current trend continues.

Translated by «Yandex.Translator»