Window on Infinity: Pictures from Space
A comet closes in for a Holiday rendezvous with Earth, while new stars are born in the Elephant Trunk Nebula, and the coldest place in the universe shows its face. In other words, just another month in space.
In the early morning of Oct. 25, 2013, astronomers at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., used a 14" telescope to capture this image of Comet ISON, which is brightening as it approaches the sun. The comet shines with a faint green color just to the left of center. The diagonal streak right of center was caused by the Italian SkyMed-2 satellite passing though the field of view. The comet is still too faint for the unaided eye or small binoculars to pick out, but it's an easy target in a small telescope. At this time of this image, ISON was located in the constellation Leo, some 132 million miles from Earth and heading in toward the sun at 87,900 miles per hour.
