COLLECTION NAME:
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Collection
Record
Title:
Comet Hale-Bopp
Creator:
NASA/JPL-Caltech
Description:
This image of Comet Hale-Bopp was taken by Jim Young of JPL's Table Mountain Observatory, approximately 30 miles east of Los Angeles in Wrightwood, CA, on March 7, 1997. It was taken with a 135mm telephoto lens mounted on a 35mm camera at an exposure of four minutes. The bright head of the comet, called the coma, is seen at the bottom of this image, and is pointed toward the Sun. The coma is composed of dust and gas, masking the solid nucleus of the comet made up of rock, dust and ice. The bluish tail seen heading away from ehe comet is the comet's ion tail, visible because of sunlight reflecting off of singly ionized carbon monoxide particles that fluoresce into visible wavelengths. The white tail pointing away from the comet is the dust tail, visible from sunlight reflected off of dust particles ejected from the comet over millions of miles of space.
Date:
3/20/97
Identifier:
P-48474AC
MediaType:
Image
Year:
1997
Contributor:
JPL Archives
Where:
Los Angeles
