Comet Hartley 2 – Heading towards Earth

For the first time in centuries a comet will be passing close to Earth. “Close” being about 11 million miles.

Still too faint to be seen with the unaided eye, the comet was 18 million miles away from Earth at the time, Nasa astronomer, Bill Cooke took this image using a telescope located near Mayhill, New Mexico, which he controlled via the Internet from his home computer in Huntsville, Alabama.

Comet 103P/Hartley 2, a small periodic comet, was discovered in 1986 by Malcolm Hartley, an Australian astronomer. It orbits the sun about every 6.5 years, and on October 20, 2010 the comet will make its closest approach to Earth since its discovery. A moonless sky will make for promising viewing conditions in the northeastern skies, especially just before dawn.

Comet Hartley 2’s nuclear diameter is estimated at 0.75-0.99 of one mile — 1.2-1.6 kilometers — and it’s believed to have enough mass to make approximately 100 more apparitions, or appearances, near Earth. The 2010 appearance also marks one of the closest approaches of any comet in the last few centuries. NASA

Although October 20 will be as close as it gets to us, a spacecraft from Earth will get closer still. The Nasa EPOXI mission (formerly known as Deep Impact) will fly within 435 miles of the comet’s icy nucleus on November 4- only the fifth time ever that a spacecraft has been close enough to image a comet’s core.

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