Skywatchers have been watching the comet Leonard, a dirty snowball made of ice, rock and dust, since early this year. As the comet heads towards a close encounter with the Sun on January 3, 2022, several spacecraft are keeping an eye on how the comet is changing and evolving.
Two satellites designed to observe the Sun captured recent video of the comet Leonard as it sped past the Earth for the first time in 80,000 years.
The comet Leonard is seen streaking across the field of view in an animated sequence of images captured by the Solar Heliospheric Imager. Venus and Mercury are visible in the top right, as well as the Milky Way. Venus is moving from left to right.
The comet was between the Sun and the spacecraft when the images were taken. The view of the comet's tails improves as the viewing angle at which we see it increases.
Leonard has definitely kicked into a new gear over the past couple of days. Check out that tail action!
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The images were taken from the NASA Sun STEREO-A camera on Dec 14.
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B.Gallagher is from the National Rugby League.
