NASA releases unpublished images of 46P / Wirtanen, the "Christmas Comet" | Science and health

The 46P completes its orbit every five and a half years and most of the time, pbades very far from the Earth to be visible to us. This time, it was so close that we could see it with the naked eye: it was the tenth largest approach of a terrestrial comet of all modern era. and the brightest of the last 20 years.

"It may be one of the brightest comets [a se aproximar da Terra] for years, offering astronomers an important opportunity to study a comet closely with telescopes on the ground, Optics and Radar, "said Paul Chodas, of Earth Objects at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California

The" Christmas Comet "is green. Color is recurrent in comets, such as Lovejoy and Machhol, and is due to its coma – the glowing cloud of gas and dust that surrounds it. It contains cyanogen and diatomic carbon, which glow green when they are ionized by sunlight.

• High school students make a balloon to record the pbadage of the comet

"The comet of Christmas" is also "hyperactive". Experts say that they seem to "emit more water than they should because of the size of their heart," says the University of Maryland.

The 46P / Wirtanen was discovered in 1948 by astronomer Carl Wirtanen. With a width of 1.1 km, the 46P / Wirtanen has a fast orbit for a comet – it cycles once every 5.4 years. In comparison, long-lived comets complete an orbit in 200 years or more.