                        Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                                2022 July 21

                            Messier 10 and Comet
               Image Credit & Copyright: German Penelas Perez

   Explanation: Imaged on July 15 2022, comet C/2017 K2 (PanSTARRS) had a
   Messier moment, sharing this wide telescopic field of view with
   globular star cluster Messier 10. Of course M10 was cataloged by 18th
   century comet hunter Charles Messier as the 10th object on his list of
   things that were definitely not comets. While M10 is about 14 thousand
   light-years distant, this comet PanSTARRS was about 15 light-seconds
   from our fair planet following its its July 14 closest approach. Its
   greenish coma and dust tail entertaining 21st century comet watchers,
   C/2017 K2 is expected to remain a fine telescopic comet in northern
   summer skies. On a maiden voyage from our Solar System's remote Oort
   Cloud this comet PanSTARRS was discovered in May 2017 when it was
   beyond the orbit of Saturn. At the time that made it the most distant
   active inbound comet known. Its closest approach the Sun will be within
   1.8 astronomical units on December 19, beyond the orbital distance of
   Mars.

                     Tomorrow's picture: pixels in space
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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