Hale Bopp Lives

[MeteorWayne]

<p>From Sky and Tel</p><p>http://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/home/16781796.html</p><div class="titleArea"><h1>Comet Hale-Bopp Still Lives</h1></div><div class="smBlurb"><div class="cArea">Although it has been more than a decade since Comet Hale-Bopp blazed in the night sky, it&rsquo;s still sputtering as it continues to head into cold, trans-Neptunian space. <br /><br /><div class="floatImageRight" style="padding-right:0px;padding-left:5px;padding-bottom:5px;width:341px;padding-top:5px"><div class="cMainImg" style="width:341px"><img src="http://media.skyandtelescope.com/images/HaleBopp_Twin_tails_f2.jpg" border="0" alt="Comet Hale-Bopp" title="Comet Hale-Bopp" width="341" height="250" /> <div class="caption">Comet Hale-Bopp amid its glory on March 17, 1997. The comet still shines in the outer solar system, but at a mere 20th magnitude.</div><div class="caption"><em>Dennis di Cicco</em></div></div></div>In a paper submitted to the <em>Astrophysical Journal Letters</em>, a trio of Hungarian and Australian astronomers describe capturing the most distant cometary activity ever seen.<br /><br />The team imaged Hale-Bopp over three nights last October, when the comet was nearly 26 astronomical units (2.4 billion miles) from the Sun. At 20th magnitude, it wasn&rsquo;t much to look at, just a smudge about a dozen pixels across as captured using the 2.3-meter Australian National University telescope at the Siding Spring Observatory. But the images were enough for the researchers to conclude that the nucleus is still releasing carbon monoxide gas into a coma more than 100,000 miles wide.<br /><br /></div></div> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>