Solar Orbiter Spacecraft Sends Back Photography 

The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory released a small Christmas gift to space enthusiasts in late December, when they released some of the preliminary data sent to Earth from the ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter. The comet's passage closer to the sun could see it disintegrate or swing back around into interstellar space once again. 

The sun-bound comet Leonard passed within view of the Heliospheric Imager, allowing it to record its momentary passage. It managed to be observed by the Parker Solar Probe and the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory, who both began their own analysis from separate locations during its flight. Their data should be an interesting addition to recreate the makeup of its tail, as well as its structure and velocity. Robin Colaninno, an astrophysicist at the lab said "The changes in the comet’s tail give us great insight into the solar winds.”

Comet Leonard was discovered in January 2021 by Gregory Leonard, a senior research specialist at the University of Arizona. He managed to spot the comet in images taken at the nearby Lemmon Skycenter, when he helped to provide a name to the previously-inscrutable "C/2021 A1". The comet's path has called attention to itself, said Doctor Karl Battams, a computational scientist in NRL’s Heliospheric Physics section. 

“Many folks reported a significant brightening around the 14th (before the SoloHI images), and then a subsequent so-called “outburst” in the past 24 hours, with indeterminate behavior in the meantime. My suspicion is that the comet is increasingly unhappy," he said in an effort to anthropomorphize things for the layman. "These outbursts could be the beginning of a slow and fatal disruption. But it’s too early to say for sure – it could just be letting off steam, so to speak.”

FMI: www.nasa.gov