March 19, 2004
The universe is under no obligation to make sense to us, and yet here you are — a collection of atoms that somehow learned to think, to...
Going Wild
Birthday · March 19, 2004
A little universe, just for you
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Ready to give.
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APOD published March 19, 2004. Full image credits are on the original APOD entry below. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
Dynamic jets of gas and dust surround one of the most active planetary surfaces in the solar system in this wild-looking picture of a comet nucleus. The comet's designation is 81P/Wild 2 of course (sounds like "vilt 2"), and the picture is a composite of two images recorded by the Stardust spacecraft's navigation camera during its January 2nd flyby. The composited images consist of a short exposure recording startling surface details of Wild 2's nucleus and a longer exposure, taken 10 seconds later, revealing material streaming from the surface. The left edge of the nucleus appears extremely jagged due to a strong shadow. Pitted and eroded after billions of years of outgassing and meteorite impacts, the nucleus pictured is only about 5 kilometers in diameter, while the jets of dust and gas ultimately leave trails millions of kilometers long. Stardust is scheduled to return samples of Wild 2's cometary dust, picked up during the flyby, to Earth in January 2006.