iotw2201 — Image of the Week
Leonard, Rubin, and Venus
5 January 2022: Comet Leonard (C/2021 A1) has been beautifully captured soaring above Vera C. Rubin Observatory, a Program of NSF’s NOIRLab, in this early-evening Image of the Week taken in December 2021. The diffuse tail of Comet Leonard marks it apart from the stars, just left of center in the upper third of this image. Like other comets, its twin tails flow away from the Sun, as the solar radiation boils the icy body which then releases streams of dust and gas into space. Comet Leonard, which has an orbital period of 80,000 years, was the first comet discovered in 2021. Outbursts of gas since it was first observed and forward scattering of its reflected light also made it the brightest comet observed in 2021. It reached perihelion, its nearest distance to the Sun, on 3 January 2022. Unfortunately that was its last close approach to the Sun, as its current trajectory …