Comet Lemmon Fly Through (May 3, 2013)

Hi-res TIF (4.0M)

Movies: QT: Large ( 71M), Small ( 12M),
MPEG: Large ( 16M), Small (6.6M), MP4 (3.5M)

Comet C/2012 F6 (Lemmon), which was discovered in March of 2012 by a survey at the Mt. Lemmon Observatory in Arizona, glided through the widest-angle imager of the STEREO (Ahead) spacecraft during a two-week period (April 17-30, 2013). With the Sun to the right and the Earth to the left, we could watch as its ion tail was always being pushed away from the Sun by the solar wind; a dust tail is also visible. A few coronal mass ejections can be seen as well blasting towards the general direction of Earth during this period, as well as a series of puffs of solar wind.

SOHO began its Weekly Pick some time after sending a weekly image or video clip to the American Museum of Natural History (Rose Center) in New York City. There, the SOHO Weekly Pick is displayed with some annotations on a large plasma display.

If your institution would also like to receive the same Weekly Pick from us for display (usually in Photoshop or QuickTime format), please send your inquiry to steele.hill@gsfc.nasa.gov.