Feel small?
This is comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann3, which is “buzzing” the Earth this week at a distance of only 10 million km (about 25 times as far away as our Moon). It took about 30 seconds for the light to travel from the comet to the Earth.
The nebula in the image is M57 (the “Ring”). It took over 2,000 years for that object’s light to reach the Earth.
The tiny, faint galaxy just to the upper-right of center (almost halfway between 73P and M57) is IC1296. The collective light from the stars in that galaxy left over 200 million years ago.
Try to appreciate the “depth” of this image; don’t look at it as two-dimensional.
Imagine looking out the window of a moving car… the comet is a smudge on the glass in front of your face; the nebula is a passing street sign; while the galaxy is a faraway mountain peak on the horizon…
Image credit & copyright: Stefan Seip. Click it to embiggenate (610 KB file). You should also check out Vic Stover’s wide-field animation of the comet’s passage.
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