Parker Solar Probe launched by NASA in 2018 has captured an exceptional picture of C/2020 F3, most commonly known as NEOWISE. The picture was captured by the WISPR instrument of NASA’s probe.
NEOWISE was spotted by astronomers, when they were on their NEOWISE mission of WISE space telescope, on March 27, 2020. Due to its discovery in 2020, it is named C/2020 like Hale-Bopp was named C/1995.
It is a long period comet and is supposed to be the brightest comet ever seen. When it was first spotted in March, it was so bright that it could be seen with the naked eye.
Common people also photographed it. Most probably, it was visible in regions where air pollution is less. In other areas, it could be seen using binoculars at night.
It appeared at perihelion (the point at which a comet is closest to the sun) that is why it was so clearly visible. It was recorded as 300 million kilometers away from the sun and about 250 million kilometers away from Earth.
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe was passing by Venus when it spotted the two tails of the NEOWISE according to NASA.
The instrument on Probe called WISPR is made for the purpose to capture images in the outer atmosphere of the sun when there is enough light.
The NEOWISE comet, like every comet, is composed of ice, dust, and rocks.
When these are closest to the sun, they start emitting dust and gases and grow up into glowing heads that are possible to grow larger than most of the planets.
The emission of gases and dust grows into one or two tales, two in the case of NEOWISE.
