Posted on 01/10/2022 3:02:28 PM PST by MtnClimber
Explanation: Why does Comet Leonard's tail wag? The featured time-lapse video shows the ion tail of Comet C/2021 A1 (Leonard) as it changed over ten days early last month. The video was taken by NASA's Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory-Ahead (STEREO-A) spacecraft that co-orbits the Sun at roughly the same distance as the Earth. Each image in this 29-degree field was subtracted from following image to create frames that highlight differences. The video clearly shows Comet Leonard's long ion tail extending, wagging, and otherwise being blown around by the solar wind -- a stream of fast-moving ions that stream out from the Sun. Since the video was taken, Comet Leonard continued plunging toward the Sun, reached its closest approach to the Sun between the orbits of Mercury and Venus, survived this closest approach without breaking apart, and is now fading as heads out of our Solar System.
Today's image is a video at the source link
Today's image is a video at the source link
the Universe is alive with electrical currents and their magnetic fields. Those “filaments” we see in many telescope photos are in reality Birkland Currents and Langmuir Sheaths made of organized plasma carrying millions of volts and creating sky spanning fields that will bend a comet’s tail, itself being a plasma phenomenon.
www.thunderbolts.org
The tail of a comet is always perpendicular to the Sun.
This comet appears to be headed right towards the Sun..
Wow...
Click on the “closest approach” link for the trail.
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