{"id":6049,"date":"2017-04-25T04:23:12","date_gmt":"2017-04-25T04:23:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/?p=6049"},"modified":"2017-04-25T04:23:12","modified_gmt":"2017-04-25T04:23:12","slug":"a-split-ion-tail-for-comet-lovejoy-e4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/?p=6049","title":{"rendered":"A Split Ion Tail for Comet Lovejoy E4"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img src='https:\/\/apod.nasa.gov\/image\/1704\/CometLovejoyE4_Hemmerich2_1080.jpg' style='max-width:600px;' \/><\/p>\n<div>What&#8217;s happened to Comet Lovejoy? In the pictured image, a processed composite, the comet was captured early this month after brightening unexpectedly and sporting a long and intricate ion tail. Remarkably, the typically complex effect of the Sun&#8217;s wind and magnetic field here caused the middle of Comet Lovejoy&#8217;s ion tail to resemble the head of a needle. Comet C\/2017 E4 (Lovejoy) was discovered only last month by noted comet discoverer Terry Lovejoy. The comet reached visual magnitude 7 earlier this month, making it a good target for binoculars and long duration exposure cameras. What&#8217;s happened to Comet Lovejoy (E4) since this image was taken might be considered even more remarkable &#8212; the comet&#8217;s nucleus appeared to be disintegrating and fading as it neared its closest approach to the Sun two days ago. via NASA <a href=\"http:\/\/ift.tt\/2p9Ccfd\"><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What&#8217;s happened to Comet Lovejoy? In the pictured image, a processed composite, the comet was captured early this month after brightening unexpectedly and sporting a long and intricate ion tail. <a href=\"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/?p=6049\" 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-6049","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\/6049","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=6049"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6049\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6050,"href":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6049\/revisions\/6050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}