According to NASA, Comet Leonard was seen soaring behind the plume from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope launch.
The photo was taken in Thailand and featured a pagoda in Doi Inthanon National Park in the foreground. It was chosen as NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day.
The James Webb Space Telescope was launched on Christmas Day and will travel a million miles to solar orbit, which will take about a month.
Meanwhile, Comet Leonard, identified in January, is approaching Earth at its closest distance in 70,000 years.
“Which of these two streaks represents a comet?” NASA explained. “The lower streak is the only true comet, despite the fact that they both have comet-like properties. The coma and tail of Comet Leonard, a city-sized block of stony ice traveling through the inner Solar System on its looping orbit around the Sun, are visible in this lower streak.”
The nearest comet to Earth, Leonard, passed by last week and will round the Sun next week.
“In recent weeks, the comet, which is still visible to the naked eye, has formed a lengthy and changeable tail,” NASA said. “In comparison, the upper streak is the Ariane V rocket’s launch plume, which launched the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) two days earlier.”
On January 3, 2022, Comet Leonard will make its closest approach to the Sun, coming within 56 million miles of our star, roughly half the distance between Earth and the Sun.
Comet Leonard’s track will propel it into interstellar space, never to return if it does not disintegrate on its journey to the Sun. However, experts believe it is already splitting up or will start splitting up soon, less than a year after it was discovered.
When a comet approaches the Sun, it warms up and ejects dust and gases into a massive blazing head the size of most planets.