{"id":25653,"date":"2023-12-08T05:57:29","date_gmt":"2023-12-08T05:57:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/?p=25653"},"modified":"2023-12-08T05:57:29","modified_gmt":"2023-12-08T05:57:29","slug":"vega-and-comet-12p-pons-brooks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/?p=25653","title":{"rendered":"Vega and Comet 12P Pons-Brooks"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img src='https:\/\/apod.nasa.gov\/image\/2312\/_12P_Pons_Brooks_2023_12_04_184135PST_DEBartlett1024.jpg' style='max-width:600px;' \/><\/p>\n<div> On December 4, periodic Comet 12P\/Pons-Brooks shared this telescopic field of view with Vega, alpha star of the northern constellation Lyra. Fifth brightest star in planet Earth&#8217;s night, Vega is some 25 light-years distant while the much fainter comet was about 21 light-minutes away. In recent months, outbursts have caused dramatic increases in brightness for Pons-Brooks though. Nicknamed the Devil Comet for its hornlike appearance, fans of interstellar spaceflight have also suggested the distorted shape of this comet&#8217;s large coma looks like the Millenium Falcon. A Halley-type comet, 12P\/Pons-Brooks last visited the inner Solar System in 1954. Its next perihelion passage or closest approach to the Sun will be April 21, 2024. That&#8217;s just two weeks after the April 8 total solar eclipse path crosses North America. But, highly inclined to the Solar System&#8217;s ecliptic plane, the orbit of periodic Comet 12P\/Pons-Brooks will never cross the orbit of planet Earth. via NASA <a href=\"https:\/\/apod.nasa.gov\/apod\/ap231208.html\"><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On December 4, periodic Comet 12P\/Pons-Brooks shared this telescopic field of view with Vega, alpha star of the northern constellation Lyra. Fifth brightest star in planet Earth&#8217;s night, Vega is <a href=\"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/?p=25653\" 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-25653","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\/25653","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=25653"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25653\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25654,"href":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25653\/revisions\/25654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}