Comet ISON — the rapidly approaching ‘comet of the century’, as some have dubbed it — is the subject of a spectacular newly released image. In the image, the the icy comet is seen against a stellar backdrop which includes a number of stars and galaxies.
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
The image, which was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, is actually a composite image — background stars and galaxies were imaged separately in red and yellow-green light. As the comet moved some between exposures, in relation to the stars and galaxies objects, the appearance of the comet was blurred — so the blurred comet image was replaced with a single, black-and-white exposure.
Comet ISON has been increasing in brightness fairly steadily since its discovery — as you can see in these images here.
“Comet ISON is predicted to likely put on quite a show later this year — in late November the comet could possibly become as bright as the Full Moon, and even visible in broad daylight, according to some sources. Of course, comets are notoriously hard to predict, so we’ll have to wait and see with regards to the predictions.”
