Thousands of new, high-quality pictures added every day. However, Comet Encke was named after German astronomer Johann Franz Encke who was responsible for calculating the comet's orbit.Įncke has the shortest orbital period of any known comet within our solar system, taking just 3.3 years to orbit the sun.Įach time comet Encke returns to the inner solar system, its nucleus sheds ice and rock into space into a vast debris stream. Find Cloudy sky background stock images in HD and millions of other royalty-free stock photos, illustrations and vectors in the Shutterstock collection. Find high-quality stock photos that you won't find anywhere else. Usually, comets are named after their discoverers or the observatory or telescope involved in the discovery. Search from Sky Background stock photos, pictures and royalty-free images from iStock. 17, 1786, according to NASA Science (opens in new tab). The debris stream from Encke is so large and spread out that it takes Earth a rather long time to pass through the entirety of the debris which is why we experience two separate segments of the shower - the Northern Taurids and the Southern Taurids, according to Royal Museums Greenwich (opens in new tab) (RMG).Ĭomet Encke was discovered by French astronomer Pierre F. The Taurid meteor shower is caused by the debris - ice and dust - from comet 2P/Encke as it passes through our solar system. Find Grass and sky background stock images in HD and millions of other royalty-free stock photos, illustrations and vectors in the Shutterstock collection. (Image credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington/Southwest Research Institute) (opens in new tab) At that time, Encke was approximately 2.3 million miles (3.7 million kilometers) from Messenger and 32.7 million miles (52.6 million kilometers) from the sun. NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft captured this image of Comet 2P/Encke during the comet's closest approach to Mercury in 2013.
0 kommentar(er)
