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Comet Visits Seagull   -  By: Babak A. Tafreshi

The Seagull Nebula, a broad expanse of glowing gas and dust spans over 100 light-years at an estimated 3,800 light-year distance presenting a bird-like visage to us. It near the direction of Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky at the distance of only 8 lights years. But there is a much closer object in this view, right in our Solar System. Comet Hartley 2 (designated 103P/Hartley) is the green round cloud at the upper left, passing constellation Monoceros on this view from Nov. 2010. Hartley is famous in the science for being the target of a flyby of the Deep Impact spacecraft only a couple of weeks before this image. The spacecraft approached within 700 kilometers of the icy body. Other interesting deep sky objects are in the image includes the double star clusters of M46 and M47 at the lower left and another prominent open cluster listed as M41 below right of Sirius.

 


    Item Code: 102548


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