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Rare photograph of comet tail breaking off wins prestigious award

(Image Credit Google)
The Royal Observatory Greenwich's Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition has awarded the grand prize to an ethereal photograph of Comet Leonard navigating against the solar wind. On Christmas Day 2021, Namibian photographer Gerald Rhemann captured the comet and its sweeping tail. The comet's gas may be seen being grabbed and carried away by solar wind in Rhemann's photograph. "This award is one of the highlights of my astrophotography work," Rhemannr said in a statement. "All the effort that went into making this image a success was worth it."
In December of that year, Comet Leonard came the closest to Earth. It was detected in January 2021. During that approach, the solar wind, which is made up of charged particles from the sun, interacted with charged particles in the comet's trail, giving its tail the appearance of a twisted streamer. Astronomers estimate that Comet Leonard's track will now take it far into interstellar space, never to return to the core solar system, making Rhemann's photograph a once-in-a-lifetime image.
The winning image was one of a number of remarkable and unusual photos entered in the contest. "There are some things you won't have seen before, and even some things that won't be seen again," Ed Bloomer, an astronomer at the Royal Observatory Greenwich, said in the statement.
Other category winners include the sparkling image of the Milky Way galaxy's nearest massive spiral galaxy, "Andromeda Galaxy: The Neighbor," taken by Chinese teenagers Yang Hanwen and Zhou Zezhen at the age of 14. The Young Photographer category was won by their photo.Iceberg
With a picture of a bright green aurora rising over an ice-covered Icelandic lake, Slovakian photographer Filip Hrebenda won the top honor in the category for Aurorae. With a stunning photograph of shadows strewn across the surface of the moon's Plato crater, Martin Lewis of the UK won the Moon category.
The winning image was one of a number of remarkable and unusual photos entered in the contest. "There are some things you won't have seen before, and even some things that won't be seen again," Ed Bloomer, an astronomer at the Royal Observatory Greenwich, said in the statement.

By Awanish Kumar

I keep abreast of the latest technological developments to bring you unfiltered information about gadgets.

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