NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft imaged comet 2P/Encke during its closest approach of the planet Mercury at 22:56 UTC on November 17. At that time, Encke was approximately 2.3 million miles (3.7 million kilometers) from MESSENGER and 32.7 million miles (52.6 million kilometers) from our sun. The image is 7° by 4.7° in size and has been slightly smoothed to enhance the faint tail of the comet. The tail was oriented nearly side on to MESSENGER in this image and is seen to stretch several degrees from the comet’s bright coma in the direction away from the Sun.
This image was acquired by the Wide Angle Camera (WAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS) aboard NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft. The MESSENGER spacecraft is the first ever to orbit the planet Mercury, and the spacecraft’s seven scientific instruments and radio science investigation are unraveling the history and evolution of the Solar System’s innermost planet.
Related: A Tale of Two Comets: ISON
Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington/Southwest Research Institute