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NASA's Swift Spies Comet Lulin

A bright ball of white light is surrounded by a halo of purple and pink. The purple appears in a circle around the white light while the pink is offset to the left and below the central white ball. This is all on a black background dotted with blue stars.
Credit: NASA/Swift/Univ. of Leicester/Bodewits et al.
Published: February 20, 2009

This image of Comet Lulin, taken Jan. 28, 2009, merges data acquired by NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory's Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope (blue and green) and X-Ray Telescope (red). At the time of the observation, the comet was 99.5 million miles from Earth and 115.3 million miles from the Sun.

More information: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/swift/bursts/lulin.html

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