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Credit & Copyright: Lin Zixuan
(Tsinghua U.)
Explanation:
What did Comet Lemmon look like when it was at its best?
One example is pictured here, featuring three celestial spectacles all at different
distances.
The closest spectacle is the snowcapped
Meili Mountains, part of the
Himalayas in
China.
The middle
marvel is Comet Lemmon near its
picturesque best early this month,
showing not only a white
dust tail trailing off to the right but its blue solar wind-distorted
ion tail trailing off to the left.
Far in the distance on the left is the magnificent central plane of our
Milky Way Galaxy, featuring
dark dust,
red nebula, and including billions of
Sun-like stars.
Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) is already fading as it heads back into the outer Solar
System, while the
Himalayan mountains will gradually
erode over the next billion years.
The Milky Way Galaxy,
though, will live on -- forming
new mountains and comets --
for many billions of years into the future.
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NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: comet
Publications with words: comet
See also:
- 3I/ATLAS: A View from Planet Earth
- APOD: 2025 November 17 B Comet Lemmons Wandering Tail
- APOD: 2025 September 30 B Comet Lemmon Brightens
- APOD: 2025 September 29 B Two Camera Comets in One Sky
- APOD: 2025 September 26 B A SWAN an ATLAS and Mars
- APOD: 2025 September 18 B Comet C/2025 R2 SWAN
- APOD: 2025 September 16 B New Comet SWAN25B over Mexico