The Slooh telescopes in Chile captured Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann exploding into two large pieces on Sunday, Feb 12. Comet 73P passes through the inner solar system every 5.4 years. Each time the comet passes by the sun, it decays a little more. It was first recorded disintegrating in 1995, according to CNET.
In 2006, the Hubble telescope captured Comet 73P travelling around the sun with 40 fragments surrounding it. There were worries the comet would fall into the ocean and cause a massive tsunami. The comet; however, is still in tact and it will reach perihelion- its closest approach to the sun before heading back towards Jupiter on March 16. Comet 73P will be 31 million miles from Jupiter by 2025 and could break apart even more according to EarthSky.
“It certainly feels like it’s only a matter of time before comet 73P is destroyed, disintegrating into a trail of cosmic dust” Slooh astronomer Paul Cox said in a statement. Comets are constantly subjected to all sorts of solar wind, radiation and gravity actively fighting to break them apart.
Pieces that break off from comets are called meteors. Between 90-95 percent of all meteors disintegrate in the atmosphere before they hit the earth. There are 12 separate “major” meteor showers and 17 “minor” meteor showers expected in 2017 according to the American Meteor Society. The next major meteor shower; Lyrids is scheduled to hit April 18.
A comet is made up of ice, rock and dust. The closer it gets to the sun, the more the ice in the nucleus will vaporize and form a cloud that can expand to nearly 50,000 miles. Comets can also form a 600,000 mile long “tail” of small pieces of itself that have broken off. There have been very few recordings of comets hitting earth due to the fact one hits the earth every 40,000-100,000 years according to The Guardian.
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