Hubble Images of Comet Hale-Bopp
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Observer: Hal Weaver
Location: Hubble Space Telescope
Dates: September 1995-1996
The above figure shows the temporal evolution of Comet Hale-Bopp over the
course of about 1 year, as observed by the Hubble Space Telescope. In the
far-left frame we caught the comet about 60 hours after a huge outburst of
dust, and the image shows an impressive spiral structure reminescent of a
water sprinkler observed from above. The middle frame shows the comet during
a more quiescent phase in which hardly any structure is seen in the coma
without employing a strong intensity contrast in the display. The image at
the far-right shows that the comet has now taken on a "porcupine" appearance
as at least five jets can be seen sprouting from the nucleus. The nucleus of
the comet is located at the center of each frame, but most of the light
observed is due to scattered sunlight from fine dust grains that are emitted
from the nucleus and which produce the cometary "coma".
Each frame above is 10 arcsec across. For the far-left frame this
corresponds to 47,000 km at the comet, for the middle frame this corresponds
to 49,000 km at the comet, and for the far-right frame this correponds to
21,000 km at the comet. (The comet was much closer to the Earth during the
September 1996 observations.)
Comet Hale-Bopp Home Page
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