{"id":24655,"date":"2021-12-30T05:56:37","date_gmt":"2021-12-30T05:56:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/?p=24655"},"modified":"2021-12-30T05:56:37","modified_gmt":"2021-12-30T05:56:37","slug":"the-further-tail-of-comet-leonard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/?p=24655","title":{"rendered":"The Further Tail of Comet Leonard"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img src='https:\/\/apod.nasa.gov\/image\/2112\/tail_gasparri_web1024.jpg' style='max-width:600px;' \/><\/p>\n<div>Comet Leonard, brightest comet of 2021, is at the lower left of these two panels captured on December 29 in dark Atacama desert skies. Heading for its perihelion on January 3 Comet Leonard&#8217;s visible tail has grown. Stacked exposures with a wide angle lens (also displayed in a reversed B\/W scheme for contrast), trace the complicated ion tail for an amazing 60 degrees, with bright Jupiter shining near the horizon at lower right. Material vaporizing from Comet Leonard&#8217;s nucleus, a mass of dust, rock, and ices about 1 kilometer across, has produced the long tail of ionized gas fluorescing in the sunlight. Likely flares on the comet&#8217;s nucleus and buffeting by magnetic fields and the solar wind in recent weeks have resulted in the tail&#8217;s irregular pinched and twisted appearance. Still days from its closest approach to the Sun, Comet Leonard&#8217;s activity should continue. The comet is south of the Solar System&#8217;s ecliptic plane as it sweeps through the southern constellation Microscopium. via NASA <a href=\"https:\/\/apod.nasa.gov\/apod\/ap211230.html\"><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Comet Leonard, brightest comet of 2021, is at the lower left of these two panels captured on December 29 in dark Atacama desert skies. Heading for its perihelion on January <a href=\"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/?p=24655\" class=\"more-link\">[&hellip;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"Layout":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[10,12],"class_list":["entry","author-admin","post-24655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-whatsup","tag-ifttt","tag-nasa"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24655"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24656,"href":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24655\/revisions\/24656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}