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File:Pia17443 - Spitzer Spies Don Quixote.jpg

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English: With the help of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, astronomers have discovered that what was thought to be a large asteroid called Don Quixote is in fact a comet.

The left image shows Don Quixote's coma and tail -- features of comets -- as revealed in infrared light by Spitzer. The coma appears as a faint glow around the center of the body, caused by dust and gas. The tail, which appears more clearly in the right image, points towards the right-hand side of Don Quixote, into the direction opposite of the sun.

The right image represents a more elaborate image processing step, in which the glow of the coma has been removed based on a model comet coma.

Bright speckles around Don Quixote are background stars; the horizontal bar covers image artifacts caused by the image processing.
Date
Source https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/spitzer/multimedia/pia17443.html
Author NASA/JPL-Caltech/DLR/NAU

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Public domain This file is in the public domain in the United States because it was solely created by NASA. NASA copyright policy states that "NASA material is not protected by copyright unless noted". (See Template:PD-USGov, NASA copyright policy page or JPL Image Use Policy.)
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current13:51, 18 April 2023Thumbnail for version as of 13:51, 18 April 20232,830 × 1,530 (1.13 MB)C messierUploaded a work by NASA/JPL-Caltech/DLR/NAU from https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/spitzer/multimedia/pia17443.html with UploadWizard

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