PIA08438: Comet Stepping Stones
This image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows three of the many fragments making up Comet 73P /Schwassman-Wachmann 3. The infrared picture also provides the best look yet at the crumbling comet's trail of debris.
Target Name: Comet
Mission: Spitzer Space Telescope
Spacecraft: Spitzer Space Telescope
Instrument: Multiband Imaging Photometer (MIPS)
Product Size: 2947 samples x 2035 lines
Produced By: California Institute of Technology
Full-Res TIFF: PIA08438.tif (17.99 MB)
Full-Res JPEG: PIA08438.jpg (1.157 MB)

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Original Caption Released with Image:

This image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows three of the many fragments making up Comet 73P /Schwassman-Wachmann 3. The infrared picture also provides the best look yet at the crumbling comet's trail of debris, seen here as a bridge connecting the larger fragments.

The comet circles around our sun every 5.4 years. In 1995, it splintered apart into four pieces, labeled A through D, with C being the biggest. Since then, the comet has continued to fracture into dozens of additional pieces. This image is centered about midway between fragments C and B; fragment G can be seen in the upper right corner.

The comet's trail is made of dust, pebbles and rocks left in the comet's wake during its numerous journeys around the sun. Such debris can become the stuff of spectacular meteor showers on Earth.

This image was taken on April 1, 2006, by Spitzer's multi-band imaging photometer using the 24-micron wavelength channel.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech

Image Addition Date:
2006-05-05