Comet lovejoy last view

 

Planetarium here is witnessing huge rush of astro enthusiasts to get a glimpse of comet Lovejoy. The planetarium, which has made arrangements for night sky watch to spot the comet, which was closer to the sun till recently and now moving away, on Thursday and Friday,
had all its tickets for the show sold out on Thursday morning itself. Comet Lovejoy will be visible again only after 8,000 years.

As the entry was restricted to 50 visitors a day on a first-come-first served basis there was a hasty run to get the coupons for the show.
Only those visitors who collect the coupons will be issued the tickets priced at a nominal rate of Rs 15. The comet will be visible on the dark skies through a telescope or professional binocular till January 30.
"If more people are interested then it will be extended to two more days," KSSTM officials said.
The number of visitors is restricted as the planetarium has only one 14-inch telescope for night sky observation as the other 11-inch telescopeis part of the mobile astronomy outreach programme and is currently at the College of Engineering, Thiruvananthapuram as part of its ongoing diamond jubilee celebrations.

Named after Australian amateur astronomer Terry Lovejoy, who discovered the comet, it is passing through the solar system and is more than 50 million miles away from earth. Lovejoy was at the closest point to earth on January 7 at 43.6 million miles and was visible to the naked eye in a hazy form.
"It was inching closer to the sun till January 19 at a speed of 36km per second, appearing at its brightest, but now it is going upwards from the earth's orbit. As it is moving away, its brightness will fade, however, it will be visible through a telescope or professional binocular," amateur astronomer Kiran Mohan said.

The comet was formed outside the Neptune orbit and from the Oort cloud around which is a ring of comets that appear as ice ballsDue to solar warming, the surface of the comet turns its ice into gas which streams behind the core along with dust caught in the surface ice.Now Lovejoy is between Earth and Mars and is on an exponential decay