Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. This March 19th false-color picture of Comet Hyakutake from one of the most sophisticated ground based telescopes captures the area surrounding the comet's nucleus . This image shows, for the first time, features of irregular brightness in the coma surrounding the nucleus. The beginning of the ion tale is visible as the bright feature emanating from the right, approaching about 1000 km from nucleus. At the distance of the comet, the whole field captured here is roughly the size of the Earth.
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