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Image Of The Day
3I/ATLAS Flyby
📖 3 min read 📊 beginner 🏷️ NASA APOD
In Brief
Attention grabbing interstellar visitor 3I/ATLAS made its not-so-close flyby of our fair planet on December 19 at a distance of 1.8 astronomical units. That's about 900 light-seconds. Still, this deep exposure captures the comet from another star system as it gently swept across a faint background o...
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The Full Story
Attention grabbing interstellar visitor 3I/ATLAS made its not-so-close flyby of our fair planet on December 19 at a distance of 1.8 astronomical units. That's about 900 light-seconds. Still, this deep exposure captures the comet from another star system as it gently swept across a faint background of stars in the constellation Leo about 4 days earlier, on the night of December 15. Though faint, colors emphasized in the image data, show off the comet's yellowish dust tail and bluish ion tail alon...
Key Takeaways
- 1 Important astronomical discovery
- 2 Advances our understanding
- 3 Future research potential
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How We Know This
Scientific observation and analysis
What This Means
Contributes to our knowledge of the universe
Why It Matters
Important advance in astronomy
Related Topics
#astronomy
#discovery