When Earth passes through the debris the "comet crumbs" heat up as they enter Earth's atmosphere and burn up in bright bursts of light, streaking a vivid path across the sky.Ĭomet Encke and the Taurid meteor shower are thought to be the remnants of a far larger comet that broke apart over the last 20,000 to 30,000 years, according to RMG. Krisciunas 1997, PASP, 209, 1181 Krisciunas and Schaefer 1991, PASP, 103, 1033 Benn and Ellison 1998, La Palma Technical Note 115). All of these Sunset Sky background and pictures are for. 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. The optical sky background depends on a number of parameters including the target - moon angular separation, lunar phase, ecliptic latitude, zenith angle, and phase of the solar cycle (e.g. Pngtree provides you with 648 free hd Sunset Sky background images, photos, banners and wallpaper. Usually, comets are named after their discoverers or the observatory or telescope involved in the discovery. 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. (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.
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