2026 May 10 - Comet R3 PanSTARRS and Orion

Ajouté : 2026-05-10

[00:00:02]Greetings and welcome to the Astronomy Picture of the Day podcast.

[00:00:07]Today's picture is titled Comet R3 Pan-STARRS and Orion.

[00:00:14]So, what do we see here?

[00:00:16]Well, here we see Comet R3 Pan-STARRS and we've looked at this over the last month or so as it came in closer to the Sun and Earth and is now heading back out and in fact out of the solar system altogether and will eventually escape from our solar system traveling out into interstellar space.

[00:00:37]Now, the comet is beginning to fade as it gets farther away and moving into the southern skies and here we see it in the constellation of Orion a few days ago.

[00:00:48]In fact, very close to the bright star Rigel, which we can see off to the left of it there. Rigel, one of the brighter stars in the constellation of Orion.

[00:00:59]Now, the comet itself is still being energized by our Sun as it heads out and we can see the two tails stretching back. The long ion tail stretching straight back and in fact going directly away from the Sun and we also see the dust tail made of slightly heavier particles that lags a little bit behind the comet in its orbit. So, the ion tail goes straight back away from the Sun, the dust tail curves away a little bit from that.

[00:01:32]Now, we are looking in the direction of the constellation of Orion and we saw the bright star Rigel there previously.

[00:01:39]Down below Rigel, we see the Witch Head Nebula. The Witch Head Nebula is actually a reflection nebula, it's reflecting the light of nearby stars, which is what causes it to glow.

[00:01:53]And that differs it from the Orion Nebula in the upper right. The Orion Nebula is very a prominently an emission nebula, which is gases that are glowing when excited by the hot stars forming within it. So, hot stars forming at the central portions of the Orion Nebula then energize that entire nebula.

[00:02:15]Now, as we look out across the view here, we see that things are at all different distances. So, we have Rigel and the Orion Nebula and the Witch Head Nebula, which are all roughly the same distance away from us, about a thousand light-years away.

[00:02:34]And in the foreground, of course, we see Comet R3 Pan-STARRS, which is within our own solar system only light minutes away.

[00:02:45]So, as we often see, things that may appear close together in the sky can actually be at very great distances from one another. The comet here much closer within our own solar system, the rest of the objects that we see a thousand light-years away, those main objects, and the stars could be even much further away than that or would be even closer.

[00:03:11]Just depends on the specifics of the individual stars that we see in the image.

[00:03:18]So, that was our picture of the day titled Comet R3 Pan-STARRS and Orion.

[00:03:25]We'll be back again tomorrow for the next picture, previewed to be Canary Moonset.

[00:03:32]So, we'll see what that is about tomorrow. And until then, have a great day, everyone, and I will see you in class.