March 7, 2002
In the time it took you to read this, the Earth moved another thousand miles through space. You are not standing still. You never have been.
Comet Ikeya-Zhang Brightens
Birthday · March 7, 2002
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APOD published March 7, 2002. Credit: Gerald Rhemann. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
In the last week, Comet Ikeya-Zhang has become bright enough to be just visible to the unaided eye. Based on its present activity, observers are optimistic that Ikeya-Zhang will become substantially brighter. This composite color image from March 3rd, captured with a wide-field telescope, shows this active comet's bright, condensed coma and a delightful array of subtle structures in its developing tail. The bluish tail stretches for 5 degrees or so against a background of stars in the constellation Pisces. In the coming days look for the comet hanging low in the western evening sky (below a bright yellowish Mars), eventually becoming difficult to see in the March twilight. But after April begins, Ikeya-Zhang will become a predawn object climbing higher into the morning sky as the month progresses. Cataloged as comet C/2002 C1, improved orbit determinations now make it seem very likely that Comet Ikeya-Zhang has been around here before. Refined calculations indicate this comet's last trip through the inner Solar System was 341 years ago, in 1661, when it was recorded as a bright comet.
Image credit: Gerald Rhemann