Disconnected Tail
On February 4, 2009, a team of Italian astronomers witnessed "an intriguing phenomenon in Comet Lulin's tail". Team leader Ernesto Guido explains: "We photographed the comet using a remotely-controlled telescope in New Mexico, and our images clearly showed a disconnection event. While we were looking, part of the comet's plasma tail was torn away."
Guido and colleagues believe the event was caused by a magnetic disturbance in the solar wind hitting the comet. Magnetic mini-storms in comet tails have been observed before—most famously in 2007 when NASA's STEREO spacecraft watched a coronal mass ejection crash into Comet Encke. Encke lost its tail in dramatic fashion, much as Comet Lulin did on February 4.
Read more about this topic: Comet Lulin
Famous quotes containing the words disconnected and/or tail:
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—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“You always strain tuh be de bell cow, never be de tail uh nothin’.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)