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Astronomy Picture of the Day - The Images not Posted during the Government Shutdown - Two Tails of Comet Lemmon
NASA ^ | 27 Oct, 2025 | Image Credit: Massimo Penna

Posted on 12/12/2025 11:23:41 AM PST by MtnClimber

Explanation: How many bright tails does Comet Lemmon have? Two. In the featured image it appears to have three, but why? The reason is that the zigzagging brown filament is a persistent meteor train that by luck appeared in front of the distant comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon). A meteor train is the hot gas and fine dust that remains in the Earth's atmosphere and disperses in the seconds after a bright meteor flashes by. The two bright tails are the blue ion tail stretching across the image, and the white dust tail nearer the green coma on the upper left. All real comet tails originate from the nucleus of the comet inside the coma. The image was captured a few days ago from Manciano, Italy. This week, from mid-northern locations, Comet Lemmon will remain faintly visible in the northwest sky after sunset.


TOPICS: Astronomy; Science
KEYWORDS: apod; nasa

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For more detail go to the link and click on the image for a high definition image. You can then move the magnifying glass cursor then click to zoom in and click again to zoom out. When zoomed in you can scan by moving the side bars on the bottom and right side of the image.

1 posted on 12/12/2025 11:23:41 AM PST by MtnClimber
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To: MtnClimber

2 posted on 12/12/2025 11:23:59 AM PST by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery, wildlife and climbing, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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To: 21twelve; 4everontheRight; A Navy Vet; A_perfect_lady; abb; AFB-XYZ; AFPhys; Agatsu77; ...

Pinging the APOD list

🪐 🌟 🌌 🍔


3 posted on 12/12/2025 11:24:35 AM PST by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery, wildlife and climbing, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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To: MtnClimber

4 posted on 12/12/2025 11:32:40 AM PST by Diogenesis (Si vis pacem, para bellum)
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To: Diogenesis

Wow.


5 posted on 12/12/2025 11:59:13 AM PST by No name given ( Anonymous is who you’ll know me as )
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To: MtnClimber

Cool.


6 posted on 12/12/2025 11:59:19 AM PST by No name given ( Anonymous is who you’ll know me as )
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To: MtnClimber

Spacetrails.

They’re poisoning the whole solar system.


7 posted on 12/12/2025 12:02:38 PM PST by DannyTN
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To: MtnClimber

Nice!


8 posted on 12/12/2025 12:31:59 PM PST by SkyDancer ( ~ Am Yisrael Chai ~)
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To: MtnClimber

I had to do a double take on that one.


9 posted on 12/12/2025 12:44:08 PM PST by telescope115 (Ad Astra, Ad Deum…)
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To: Diogenesis

Comet Ice-T and Comet Sugar Ray would go well with Comet Lemmon.


10 posted on 12/12/2025 4:03:58 PM PST by Larry Lucido (Donate! Don't just post clickbait.)
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To: DannyTN

Its Chemtrails in Space!


11 posted on 12/12/2025 5:10:52 PM PST by TonyM (Score Event)
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To: Diogenesis; MtnClimber

Looks like a Trout fishing fly!


12 posted on 12/12/2025 7:18:32 PM PST by Pete from Shawnee Mission ( )
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