Shortly after Mercury moved toward its closest point to the Sun, its massive comet-like tail appeared unusually bright in the night sky.
Mercury’s comet-like tail streaks across the sky in this image taken on April 12.
Mercury has been spotted looking like a comet over the past few days as the Sun’s neighbor planet approaches its closest point, revealing a giant tail streaking across the night sky. An astrophysicist has captured a truly epic image of this moment.
Comets orbiting frozen masses of rock, gas and dust are almost always seen with distinctive double tails running behind them – one made from gas leaking inside them and the other created by dust from their surface. These two tails are blown off the comet in the same direction by electrically charged particles from the sun called solar wind.
Mercury, the smallest planet in the solar system, has a comet-like tail composed mostly of sodium ionsdispersed from the planet’s surface by the solar wind and asteroid impacts.
Researchers have known Tail of Mercury since 2001 and has since discovered that it grows and shrinks depending on the planet’s distance from the Sun.
At its peak, the tail spanned about 24 million miles, according to Spaceweather. com, about 62 times greater than the distance between the Earth and the Moon. The tail extends this great distance because Mercury has a very weak atmosphere and is close to the Sun. This allows the solar wind to easily tear apart the surface of the planet.
Mercury and its tail shine in the night sky.
Mercury and its tail shine in the night sky.
For unknown reasons, Mercury’s tail is best visible from Earth exactly 16 days after perihelion, or the point at which the planet is closest to the Sun, according to Spacewether. com.
Mercury reaches its closest point to the Sun on April 1, which means its tail is brightest on April 17. But on April 12, astrophysicist Sebastian Voltmer captured a beautiful image of Mars from a location near Spicheren, a commune in northeastern France.
For a casual observer, it is very difficult to see the tail of Mercury, that’s why it remained unknown until the 21st century. But Voltmer was able to photograph the huge plume of smoke thanks to a specialized filter that highlights the yellow wavelengths of light, which are emitted by particles sodium excited in the tail.
“Without such a filter, Mercury’s tail is almost invisible to the naked eye”, Voltmer said.
| Mercury isn’t the only object in the solar system with a comet-like tail surprisingly. The moon also has a tail that can only be seen once a month when the Earth passes through it and wraps it around like a scarf. Like Mercury, the tail of the Moon is also composed mostly of millions of sodium atoms. |
Post source: Tien Phong
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Shortly after Mercury moved toward its closest point to the Sun, its massive comet-like tail appeared unusually bright in the night sky.
