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                        Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                                2025 April 18

                            Comet C/2025 F2 SWAN
                   Image Credit & Copyright: Dan Bartlett

   Explanation: In late March, the comet now designated C/2025 F2 SWAN was
   found independently by citizen scientists Vladimir Bezugly, Michael
   Mattiazzo, and Rob Matson while examining publicly available image data
   from the Solar Wind ANisotropies (SWAN) camera on the sun-staring SOHO
   spacecraft. Comet SWAN's coma, its greenish color a signature of
   diatomic carbon molecules fluorescing in sunlight, is at lower left in
   this telescopic image. SWAN's faint ion tail extends nearly two degrees
   toward the upper right across the field of view. The interplanetary
   scene was captured in clear but moonlit skies from June Lake,
   California on April 14. Seen against background of stars toward the
   constellation Andromeda, the comet was then some 10 light-minutes from
   our fair planet. Now a target for binoculars and small telescopes in
   northern hemisphere morning skies this comet SWAN is headed for a
   perihelion, its closest approach to the Sun, on May 1. That will bring
   this visitor from the distant Oort cloud almost as close to the Sun as
   the orbit of inner planet Mercury.

              Tomorrow's picture: interplanetary post-modernism
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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