The ghostly green comet scene approaches the Earth

According to astronomers, the spooky green comet named 103P / Hartley moved in the closest position to the Earth on October 20 and everyone could observe it with their eyes. usually in the night.

Austrian astronomer Malcolm Hartley discovered this comet in March 1986. The most recent return of the Solar System was in 1991, and astronomers determined the parameters. its orbit.

Because it is a 103-period comet, it is called the 103P comet, but since it is the second of the three comets named Hartley, it has another name, Hartley. 2.

With its orbital cycle of 6.5 years, stretching from outside Jupiter's orbit to near Earth orbit. This is the fourth time this comet has entered the inner region of the Solar System since it was discovered. It will reach level 5 when approaching Earth in October.

On the night of October 20, comet Hartley 2 approached Earth at the closest distance since it was discovered to be 17.7 million km and this distance is 45 times the distance between the Earth and the Moon.

Photo of an astronomer in Italy capturing the comet scene Hartley 2 glides across NGC 281 (pink), also known as the Pacman Nebula on October 2 in its journey to the solar system.In this position comets are about 26 million kilometers from Earth.

The Hubble telescope captured an image of the comet on September 25. This image was taken when the comet was 32 million kilometers from Earth.

Infrared photo taken of Hartley blue comet 2 from NASA probe on October 2.In the infrared image, it can be seen clearly that the tail of the comet forms a blur.More than 5 months before the comet approached the sun, solar radiation affected the icy surface of the comet to evaporate to create a giant dust tail that lasted about 1.7 million km.

NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft also captured the image of comet Hartley 2 from September 5.

The scene of comets approaching the Earth.

Comet Hartley 2 (green square) in the universe next to other nebulae