{"id":26383,"date":"2025-02-02T05:56:43","date_gmt":"2025-02-02T05:56:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/?p=26383"},"modified":"2025-02-02T05:56:43","modified_gmt":"2025-02-02T05:56:43","slug":"26383","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/?p=26383","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img src='https:\/\/apod.nasa.gov\/image\/2502\/AtlasDisintegrating_Majzik_1080.jpg' style='max-width:600px;' \/><\/p>\n<div>What&#8217;s happening to Comet G3 ATLAS? After passing near the Sun in mid-January, the head of the comet has become dimmer and dimmer. By late January, Comet C\/2024 G3 (ATLAS) had become a headless wonder &#8212; even though it continued to show impressivetails after sunset in the skies of Earth&#8217;s Southern Hemisphere. Pictured are images of Comet G3 ATLAS on successive January nights taken from R\u00edo Hurtado, Chile. Clearly, the comet&#8217;s head is brighter and more centrally condensed on the earlier days (left) than on later days (right). A key reason is likely that the comet&#8217;s nucleus of ice and rock, at the head&#8217;s center, has fragmented. Comet G3 ATLAS passed well inside the orbit of planet Mercury when at its solar closest, a distance that where heat destroysmanycomets. Some of comet G3 ATLAS&#8217; scattering remains will continue to orbit the Sun. via NASA <a href=\"https:\/\/apod.nasa.gov\/apod\/ap250202.html\"><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What&#8217;s happening to Comet G3 ATLAS? After passing near the Sun in mid-January, the head of the comet has become dimmer and dimmer. By late January, Comet C\/2024 G3 (ATLAS) <a href=\"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/?p=26383\" 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-26383","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\/26383","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=26383"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26383\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26384,"href":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26383\/revisions\/26384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}