Would you brave wild animals to photograph this sky? One astrophotographer did — and we all get to reap the rewards. First, thousands of stars were visible with many of the brightest impressively blue. Next, several red-glowing nebulae were discernible, including the California Nebula on the far right, and, above it, the Heart and Soul nebulae. But the real reason to brave the local wildlife was Comet NEOWISE, visible on the left. In the featured long-duration composite taken last week, Comet NEOWISE’s blue-glowing ion tail points straight up, away from the rising Sun, while the Sun-reflecting dust tail trails off toward the right. The picture combines three exposures taken consecutively over 10 minutes from the same location near Miedzygórze, Poland. A moonlit dirt road shows the path ahead, while the Åšnieznik Mountains is visible on the horizon. Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) passes its closest to the Earth next week, after which the 5-km wide, evaporating, icy dirtball will fade as it glides back to the outer Solar System. via NASA https://ift.tt/3eKntQ3

No one, presently, sees the Moon rotate like this. That’s because the Earth’s moon is tidally locked to the Earth, showing us only one side. Given modern digital technology, however, combined with many detailed images returned by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), a high resolution virtual Moon rotation movie has been composed. The featured time-lapse video starts with the standard Earth view of the Moon. Quickly, though, Mare Orientale, a large crater with a dark center that is difficult to see from the Earth, rotates into view just below the equator. From an entire lunar month condensed into 24 seconds, the video clearly shows that the Earth side of the Moon contains an abundance of dark lunar maria, while the lunar far side is dominated by bright lunar highlands. Currently, over 19 new missions to the Moon are under active development from eight different countries, most of which have expected launch dates in the next three years. via NASA https://ift.tt/2ZH6CcI

If you can see the stars of the Big Dipper, you can find comet NEOWISE in your evening sky tonight. After sunset look for the naked-eye comet below the bowl of the famous celestial kitchen utensil of the north and above your northwestern horizon. You’re looking for a fuzzy ‘star’ with a tail, though probably not so long a tail as in this clear sky snapshot taken from Los Padres National Forest in California on the evening of July 16. Recent photographs of C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) often show this comet’s broad dust tail and fainter but separate ion tail extending farther than the eye can follow. Skygazers around the world have been delighted to find NEOWISE, surprise visitor from the outer Solar System. via NASA https://ift.tt/3jhVwm3

After local midnight on July 14 comet NEOWISE was still above the horizon for Goldenrod, Alberta, Canada, just north of Calgary, planet Earth. In this snapshot it makes for an awesome night with dancing displays of the northern lights. The long-tailed comet and auroral displays are beautiful apparitions in the north these days. Both show the influence of spaceweather and the wind from the Sun. Skygazers have widely welcomed the visitor from the Oort cloud, though C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) is in an orbit that is now taking it out of the inner Solar System. via NASA https://ift.tt/3fDCJzo

This Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) now sweeps through our fair planet’s northern skies. Its long tails stretch across this deep skyview from Suchy Vrch, Czech Republic. Recorded on the night of July 13/14, the composite of untracked foreground and tracked and filtered sky exposures teases out details in the comet’s tail not visible to the unaided eye. Faint structures extend to the top of the frame, over 20 degrees from the comet’s bright coma. Pushed out by the pressure of sunlight itself, the broad curve of the comet’s yellowish dust tail is easy to see by eye. But the fainter, more bluish tail is separate from the reflective comet dust. The fainter tail is an ion tail, formed as ions from the cometary coma are dragged outward by magnetic fields in the solar wind and fluoresce in the sunlight. Outbound NEOWISE is climbing higher in northern evening skies, coming closest to Earth on July 23rd. via NASA https://ift.tt/3h5Dwtu

Comet NEOWISE has been wowing photographers around much of the world during dawn and dusk, at the margins of day and night. For the most northern residents of planet Earth, however, the comet circles the North Star and never sets. The night part of this circular arc is apparent in the featured composite of images assembled from a webcam located at a ski resort in the Swiss Alps. Images were selected at 30-minute intervals throughout the night from July 12th -13th. Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) will continue to become more accessible to northern hemisphere observers as its motion places it higher in the sky each evening after sunset over the next few weeks, as it begins its outbound journey. As with all comets, departure from the inner Solar System comes with inevitable fading. Binoculars are the best way to find and observe the comet visually. via NASA https://ift.tt/3gZHund

Have you ever seen a comet? Tonight — and likely the next few nights — should be a good chance. Go outside just at sunset and look to your northwest. The lower your horizon, the better. Binoculars may help, but if your sky is cloudless and dark, all you should need is your unaided eyes and patience. As the Sun sets, the sky will darken, and there will be an unusual faint streak pointing diagonally near the horizon. That is Comet NEOWISE. It is a 5-kilometer-wide evaporating dirty iceberg visiting from — and returning to — the outer Solar System. As the Earth turns, the comet will soon set, so you might want to take a picture. In the featured image, Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) was captured two mornings ago rising over Stonehenge in the UK. Discovered with the NASA satellite NEOWISE toward the end of March, Comet NEOWISE has surprised many by surviving its closest approach to the Sun, brightening dramatically, and developing impressive (blue) ion and (white) dust tails. via NASA https://ift.tt/32h85bw

This sight was worth getting out of bed early. Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) has been rising before dawn during the past week to the delight of northern sky enthusiasts awake that early. Up before sunrise, the featured photographer was able to capture in dramatic fashion one of the few comets visible to the unaided eye this century, an inner-Solar System intruder that might become known as the Great Comet of 2020. The resulting video details Comet NEOWISE from Italy rising over the Adriatic Sea. The time-lapse video combines over 240 images taken over 30 minutes. The comet is seen rising through a foreground of bright and undulating noctilucent clouds, and before a background of distant stars. Comet NEOWISE has remained unexpectedly bright, so far, with its ion and dust tails found to emanate from a nucleus spanning about five kilometers across. Fortunately, starting tonight, northern observers with a clear and dark northwestern horizon should be able to see the sun-reflecting interplanetary snowball just after sunset. via NASA https://ift.tt/2C4eJHh

Where do comet tails come from? There are no obvious places on the nuclei of comets from which the jets that create comet tails emanate. One of the best images of emerging jets is shown in the featured picture, taken in 2015 by ESA’s robotic Rosetta spacecraft that orbited Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (Comet CG) from 2014 to 2016. The picture shows plumes of gas and dust escaping numerous places from Comet CG’s nucleus as it neared the Sun and heated up. The comet has two prominent lobes, the larger one spanning about 4 kilometers, and a smaller 2.5-kilometer lobe connected by a narrow neck. Analyses indicate that evaporation must be taking place well inside the comet’s surface to create the jets of dust and ice that we see emitted through the surface. Comet CG (also known as Comet 67P) loses in jets about a meter of radius during each of its 6.44-year orbits around the Sun, a rate at which will completely destroy the comet in only thousands of years. In 2016, Rosetta’s mission ended with a controlled impact onto Comet CG’s surface. via NASA https://ift.tt/328LKwD

Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) is now sweeping through northern skies. Its developing tails stretch some six degrees across this telescopic field of view, recorded from Brno, Czech Republic before daybreak on July 10. Pushed out by the pressure of sunlight itself, the comet’s broad, yellowish dust tail is easiest to see. But the image also captures a fainter, more bluish tail too, separate from the reflective comet dust. The fainter tail is an ion tail, formed as ions from the cometary coma are dragged outward by magnetic fields in the solar wind and fluoresce in the sunlight. In this sharp portrait of our new visitor from the outer Solar System, the tails of comet NEOWISE are reminiscent of the even brighter tails of Hale Bopp, the Great Comet of 1997. via NASA https://ift.tt/3ejiy8L