February 24 is a VERY special day! Lulin the Comet will be visible to the naked eye.... and it's GREEN! Of course, the only reason it's green is because of its noxious atmosphere which oh so happens to be comprised of cyanogen and diatomic carbon gases. Ooooo, that even sounds poisonous. Sometimes poisons have really deceiving names, like Happy Gas.... it lulls you into a false sense of security and BAM! Death by Happy. And you never see it coming. Any who, this is the comet's first visit into the inner solar system, so lets give it a big warm hug. And also a big thanks to the Swift telescope, which took X-ray and UV pictures of the comet.
They are using NASA's Swift satellite to monitor Comet Lulin as it closes on Earth. The spacecraft has recorded simultaneous ultraviolet and X-ray images of a comet.On Jan. 28, Swift trained its Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope and X-Ray Telescope on Comet Lulin. "The comet is quite active," said team member Dennis Bodewits, a NASA Postdoctoral Fellow at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, USA. "The UVOT data show that Lulin was shedding nearly 800 gallons of water each second." That's enough to fill an Olympic-size swimming pool in less than 15 minutes.
And here's one more interesting tid bit about comets. Their tails always point away from the sun. Light actually exerts pressure, and this light pressure from the sun pushes all comets' tails away. So the tail of a comet can actually be in front of it. And to read about more interesting facts (and they are VERY interesting) here is the link to the article :)
