Comet Hale-Bopp is living up to its expectations. Besides the brightness of its coma, a comet is typically remembered by the length of its tails. As visible in the above picture taken last week, Comet Hale-Bopp's blue ion tail shows a dramatic extension, with current reports of about 20 degrees from dark locations. The comet's white dust tail has so far shown a more modest extent but appears to be growing significantly. Comet Hale-Bopp's closest approach to the Sun occurs in about two weeks, and although it will not get much closer to the Sun than does our Earth, Comet Hale-Bopp is likely to tell even more spectacular tails then.
On March 14, 1879, Albert Einstein was born. His theory of general relativity fundamentally changed our understanding of gravity and the cosmos.
November 17, 2014
The Double Dust Disks of HD 95086