The comet Hartley 2 has come and gone, and the NASA mission EPOXI is also moving on after an exceedingly close flyby of the comet's solid nucleus. The pictures we got were fantastic and beautiful... but their real power comes from coupling them with spectra.
In the picture above -- an enhanced version of one of the images taken during the space probe's flyby -- you can see fan-like emission coming from the comet's nucleus. These are jets; sprays of material coming out of the nucleus. Comets are made of rock and ice, and when the comet nears the Sun, the heat can turn that ice directly from a solid to a gas. This gas then shoots out from pockets on the nucleus, creating these jets. The EPOXI team (including my old boss, Don Lindler!) made a fantastic animation from a series of observations showing these jets in action. But ...
