by User 1

(uploaded January 19, 2015)

C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy), the brightest comet to be visible in dark skies in the Northern Hemisphere in 8 years (since the outburst of 17P/Holmes in 2007/2008), shines at magnitude +4.0 as it passes by the Earth. The 2 degrees of tail visible in this image comprise just 1/10 of what's visible in a wide field image of the comet. This full 20 degree tail translates to a true distance of over 0.2 au, or 30 million km. By comparison, the nucleus of the comet (not visible in the image) producing this tail is estimated to be around 5 km in diameter, a factor of nearly 107 smaller.

Normal Grayscale Gray+Inv