Hubble captures amazing photo of potential ‘comet of the century’

Hubble Space Telescope is turning the tables and giving us a present on its 23rd birthday, treating us to a fantastic new image of Comet ISON.

The telescope snapped this shot of the comet — expected to swing through the inner solar system this autumn — on April 10th, 2013, showing that the astronomical visitor is already sporting a significant coma, or head, and tail, despite still being pretty distant from our Sun.

"As a first-time visitor to the inner solar system, Comet C/ISON provides astronomers a rare opportunity to study a fresh comet preserved since the formation of the solar system," Jian-Yang Li, of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Ariz., said according to SPACE.com. "The expected high brightness of the comet as it nears the sun allows for many important measurements that are impossible for most other fresh comets."

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Comet ISON is forecast to make its closest pass to the Sun — about 1.2 million kilometres — on November 28th of this year. While we can only hope it will live up to its potential to be as bright as the full moon in our sky, we can at least enjoy some spectacular views of it in the meantime.

(Image courtesy of NASA, ESA, J.-Y. Li (Planetary Science Institute), and the Hubble Comet ISON Imaging Science Team)

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