Explanation: That's no comet. Below the Pleiades star cluster is actually a planet: Mercury. Long exposures of our Solar System's innermost planet may reveal something unexpected: a tail. Mercury's thin atmosphere contains small amounts of sodium that glow when excited by light from the Sun. Sunlight also liberates these molecules from Mercury's surface and pushes them away. The yellow glow from sodium, in particular, is relatively bright. Pictured, Mercury and its sodium tail are visible in a deep image taken last week from La Palma, Spain through a filter that primarily transmits yellow light emitted by sodium. First predicted in the 1980s, Mercury's tail was first discovered in 2001. Many tail details were revealed in multiple observations by NASA's robotic MESSENGER spacecraft that orbited Mercury between 2011 and 2015. Tails, of course, are usually associated with comets.

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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: Mercury - Merkurii Publikacii so slovami: Mercury - Merkurii
Sm. takzhe: Krater Vival'di na Merkurii ot apparata "BepiKolombo" S dobrym utrom, Luna Merkurii s proletayushego apparata "BepiKolombo" Merkurii i svet da Vinchi Venera, Merkurii i ubyvayushaya Luna Natrievyi sled Merkuriya Zelenye vspyshki: Solnce, Luna, Venera, Merkurii Vse publikacii na tu zhe temu >>