Explanation: One of the brightest comets of the past five years will likely reach its peak brightness this week. Comet Ikeya-Zhang, officially known as C/2002 C1, can now be seen without aide from a dark location above the western horizon shortly after sunset. Recent luminosity estimates for Comet Ikeya-Zhang place it between magnitudes three and four, making it brighter than most commonly visible stars. The above picture was taken on March 11 near Tucson, Arizona, USA. The image caught Comet Ikeya-Zhang showing a quite detailed ion tail, possibly disrupted by the magnetic field of the Sun's outwardly flowing particle wind. As the activity of comets is notoriously hard to predict, Comet Ikeya-Zhang may still hold some surprises as it rounds the Sun this month and starts back out of the Solar System in April.

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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.

Publikacii s klyuchevymi slovami: comet Ikeya-Zhang - tail - kometa Ikeya-Zhanga Publikacii so slovami: comet Ikeya-Zhang - tail - kometa Ikeya-Zhanga
Sm. takzhe: Strui na komete Churyumova-Gerasimenko Kometa Heila-Boppa: velikaya kometa 1997 goda Kometa MakNota nad Chili Skazka o komete Holmsa U komety Holmsa rastet hvost Voshod komety Bredfilda Poyavilas' kometa C 2002 T7 LINEAR Vse publikacii na tu zhe temu >>