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Comet McNaught 2010
Robert McNaught discovered a comet in 2007, and now he's discovered another—one cataloged as C/2009 R1. This image was taken by Rich Richins on June 13, 2010 from southern New Mexico. This comet's long ion tail points directly away from the Sun because of the Sun's radiation pressure. The greenish coma (atmosphere around the comet) also sports a short dust tail, which trails more or less behind the motion of the comet. This image was taken nine days before the comet's perihelion (closest approach to the Sun) on July 2. The background stars have been digitally removed from the image.