Hubble Space Telescope Captures Images of Comet 252P/LINEAR

On April 4, 2016, images of Comet 252P/LINEAR were taken. It was just about two weeks after the icy visitor made its closest approach to Earth on March 21. The comet was said to have traveled within 3.3 million miles of Earth or about 14 times the distance between Earth and the moon.

According to astronomers, the observations made represent the nearest celestial object the Hubble Space Telescope has observed, other than the moon. This type of comet is an Earth-Jupiter family comet and a near-Earth object. It was first discovered by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) in the year 2000.

Sci-news.com said that the images show a narrow, well defined jet of dust thrown out by the comet's icy nucleus, which was unfortunately too small for Hubble to make out. However, according to astronomers' estimate, it is less than one mile across. The jet in the Hubble images was lit up by sunlight, which also appears to change in direction in the images. This only goes to show that the comet's nucleus is rotating.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) reported that the spinning nucleus makes the jet look like it is rotating like the water jet from a rotating lawn sprinkler. These images highlight the movement and the volatility of a comet's delicate nucleus. A time-lapse movie, made with images from the Hubble Telescope was made to show the "changing" movement of the comet. This movie was also based on visible-lighting images captured with Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3.

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy in Washington, D.C.

The next time comet 252P/LINEAR is already traveling away from Earth and the Sun, and is expected to return to the inner Solar System again will be in 2021.