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Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Music: \"Valley of Crystals\" from Killer Tracks

Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.

Complete transcript available.

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Watch to learn more.Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Music: \"Valley of Crystals\" from Killer TracksWatch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.Complete transcript available.", "label": "English", "language_code": "" } } ], "extra_data": {} }, { "id": 328039, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/12808/#media_group_328039", "widget": "Basic text with HTML", "title": "", "caption": "", "description": "Observations by NASA's Swift spacecraft, now renamed the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory after the mission’s late principal investigator, have captured an unprecedented change in the rotation of a comet. Images taken in May 2017 reveal that comet 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresák — 41P for short — was spinning three times slower than it was in March, when it was observed by the Discovery Channel Telescope at Lowell Observatory in Arizona.

The abrupt slowdown is the most dramatic change in a comet's rotation ever seen.

Comet 41P orbits the Sun every 5.4 years. As a comet nears the Sun, increased heating causes its surface ice to change directly to a gas, producing jets that launch dust particles and icy grains into space. This material forms an extended atmosphere, called a coma.

Ground-based observations established the 41P’s initial rotational period at about 20 hours in early March 2017 and detected its slowdown later the same month. The comet passed 13.2 million miles (21.2 million km) from Earth on April 1, and eight days later made its closest approach to the Sun. Swift's Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope imaged the comet from May 7 to 9, revealing brightness variations associated with material recently ejected into the coma. These slow changes indicated 41P's rotation period had more than doubled, to between 46 and 60 hours.

UVOT-based estimates of 41P's water production, coupled with the body's small size, suggest that more than half of its surface area contains sunlight-activated jets. That's a far greater fraction of active real estate than on most comets, which typically support jets over only about 3 percent of their surfaces. Astronomers suspect these active areas are favorably oriented to produce torques that slowed 41P’s spin.

Such a slow spin could make the comet's rotation unstable, allowing it to begin tumbling with no fixed rotational axis. This would produce a dramatic change in the comet’s seasonal heating and may result in future outbursts of activity.", "items": [], "extra_data": {} }, { "id": 328041, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/12808/#media_group_328041", "widget": "Single image", "title": "", "caption": "", "description": "On March 14, 2017, two weeks before its closest approach to Earth, comet 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresák glides beneath the galaxy NGC 3198. The green glow comes from light emitted by diatomic carbon molecules.

Credit: Copyright 2017 by Chis Schur, used with permission", "items": [ { "id": 252344, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 408306, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a012800/a012808/Comet41P-031417LRGBFSchur.jpg", "filename": "Comet41P-031417LRGBFSchur.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "On March 14, 2017, two weeks before its closest approach to Earth, comet 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresák glides beneath the galaxy NGC 3198. The green glow comes from light emitted by diatomic carbon molecules.Credit: Copyright 2017 by Chis Schur, used with permission", "width": 2145, "height": 1442, "pixels": 3093090 } } ], "extra_data": {} }, { "id": 328042, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/12808/#media_group_328042", "widget": "Single image", "title": "", "caption": "", "description": "This illustration shows a jet of gas, dust and ice blasting from the surface of a small comet like 41P. Strong jet activity, enhanced by a comet's shape and small size, can produce torques that alter the comet's spin.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center", "items": [ { "id": 252345, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 408307, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a012800/a012808/Comet_4.jpg", "filename": "Comet_4.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "This illustration shows a jet of gas, dust and ice blasting from the surface of a small comet like 41P. Strong jet activity, enhanced by a comet's shape and small size, can produce torques that alter the comet's spin.Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center", "width": 1920, "height": 1080, "pixels": 2073600 } } ], "extra_data": {} }, { "id": 328043, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/12808/#media_group_328043", "widget": "Single image", "title": "", "caption": "", "description": "Comet 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresák orbits the Sun every 5.4 years, traveling only about as far out as the planet Jupiter, as shown in this illustration. Jupiter's gravitational influence is thought to have captured 41P into its present orbit.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center", "items": [ { "id": 252346, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 408308, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a012800/a012808/Comet_1.jpg", "filename": "Comet_1.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Comet 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresák orbits the Sun every 5.4 years, traveling only about as far out as the planet Jupiter, as shown in this illustration. Jupiter's gravitational influence is thought to have captured 41P into its present orbit. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center", "width": 1920, "height": 1080, "pixels": 2073600 } } ], "extra_data": {} }, { "id": 328044, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/12808/#media_group_328044", "widget": "Single image", "title": "", "caption": "", "description": "A comet warms up as it approaches the Sun in this illustration. Increased heating causes surface ice to change directly to a gas, producing jets that launch dust particles and icy grains into space. This material forms an extended atmosphere, called a coma, that gives a comet it's fuzzy appearance.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center", "items": [ { "id": 252347, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 408309, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a012800/a012808/Comet_2.jpg", "filename": "Comet_2.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "A comet warms up as it approaches the Sun in this illustration. Increased heating causes surface ice to change directly to a gas, producing jets that launch dust particles and icy grains into space. This material forms an extended atmosphere, called a coma, that gives a comet it's fuzzy appearance. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center", "width": 1920, "height": 1080, "pixels": 2073600 } } ], "extra_data": {} }, { "id": 328045, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/12808/#media_group_328045", "widget": "Single image", "title": "", "caption": "", "description": "NASA's Swift spacecraft, now renamed the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory after the mission's late principal investigator, has become the go-to facility for rapid-response, multiwavelength follow-up of time-variable sources. This illustration highlights the diversity of Swift's work, which ranges from comets in our solar system to observations of variable sources in our galaxy and beyond.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center ", "items": [ { "id": 252348, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 408310, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a012800/a012808/Swift_montage_object_labels_new_name.png", "filename": "Swift_montage_object_labels_new_name.png", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "NASA's Swift spacecraft, now renamed the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory after the mission's late principal investigator, has become the go-to facility for rapid-response, multiwavelength follow-up of time-variable sources. This illustration highlights the diversity of Swift's work, which ranges from comets in our solar system to observations of variable sources in our galaxy and beyond.Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center ", "width": 1920, "height": 1079, "pixels": 2071680 } } ], "extra_data": {} }, { "id": 328046, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/12808/#media_group_328046", "widget": "Single image", "title": "", "caption": "", "description": "NASA's Swift spacecraft, now renamed the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory after the mission's late principal investigator, has become the go-to facility for rapid-response, multiwavelength follow-up of time-variable sources. This illustration highlights the diversity of Swift's work, which ranges from comets in our solar system to observations of variable sources in our galaxy and beyond. Objects labeled only.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center ", "items": [ { "id": 252349, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 408311, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a012800/a012808/Swift_montage_object_labels.png", "filename": "Swift_montage_object_labels.png", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "NASA's Swift spacecraft, now renamed the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory after the mission's late principal investigator, has become the go-to facility for rapid-response, multiwavelength follow-up of time-variable sources. This illustration highlights the diversity of Swift's work, which ranges from comets in our solar system to observations of variable sources in our galaxy and beyond. Objects labeled only.Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center ", "width": 1920, "height": 1079, "pixels": 2071680 } } ], "extra_data": {} }, { "id": 328047, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/12808/#media_group_328047", "widget": "Single image", "title": "", "caption": "", "description": "NASA's Swift spacecraft, now renamed the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory after the mission's late principal investigator, has become the go-to facility for rapid-response, multiwavelength follow-up of time-variable sources. This illustration highlights the diversity of Swift's work, which ranges from comets in our solar system to observations of variable sources in our galaxy and beyond. Name only.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center ", "items": [ { "id": 252350, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 408312, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a012800/a012808/Swift_montage_new_name.png", "filename": "Swift_montage_new_name.png", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "NASA's Swift spacecraft, now renamed the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory after the mission's late principal investigator, has become the go-to facility for rapid-response, multiwavelength follow-up of time-variable sources. This illustration highlights the diversity of Swift's work, which ranges from comets in our solar system to observations of variable sources in our galaxy and beyond. Name only.Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center ", "width": 1920, "height": 1079, "pixels": 2071680 } } ], "extra_data": {} }, { "id": 328048, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/12808/#media_group_328048", "widget": "Single image", "title": "", "caption": "", "description": "NASA's Swift spacecraft, now renamed the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory after the mission's late principal investigator, has become the go-to facility for rapid-response, multiwavelength follow-up of time-variable sources. This illustration highlights the diversity of Swift's work, which ranges from comets in our solar system to observations of variable sources in our galaxy and beyond. Unlabeled version.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center ", "items": [ { "id": 252351, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 408313, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a012800/a012808/Swift_montage_no_labels.png", "filename": "Swift_montage_no_labels.png", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "NASA's Swift spacecraft, now renamed the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory after the mission's late principal investigator, has become the go-to facility for rapid-response, multiwavelength follow-up of time-variable sources. This illustration highlights the diversity of Swift's work, which ranges from comets in our solar system to observations of variable sources in our galaxy and beyond. Unlabeled version.Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center ", "width": 1920, "height": 1079, "pixels": 2071680 } } ], "extra_data": {} }, { "id": 328049, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/12808/#media_group_328049", "widget": "Basic text", "title": "For More Information", "caption": "", "description": "See [https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2018/nasas-newly-renamed-swift-mission-spies-a-comet-slowdown](https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2018/nasas-newly-renamed-swift-mission-spies-a-comet-slowdown)", "items": [], "extra_data": {} } ], "studio": "gms", "funding_sources": [ "NASA Astrophysics" ], "credits": [ { "role": "Producer", "people": [ { "name": "Scott Wiessinger", "employer": "USRA" } ] }, { "role": "Science writer", "people": [ { "name": "Francis Reddy", "employer": "Syneren Technologies" } ] }, { "role": "Scientist", "people": [ { "name": "Dennis Bodewits", "employer": "University of Maryland College Park" } ] }, { "role": "Animator", "people": [ { "name": "Scott Wiessinger", "employer": "USRA" } ] }, { "role": "Narrator", "people": [ { "name": "Scott Wiessinger", "employer": "USRA" } ] }, { "role": "Illustrator", "people": [ { "name": "Francis Reddy", "employer": "University of Maryland College Park" } ] } ], "missions": [ "Swift" ], "series": [ "Astrophysics Features", "Astrophysics Stills", "Narrated Movies" ], "tapes": [], "papers": [ "https://www.nature.com/articles/nature25150", "https://www.nature.com/articles/nature25150" ], "datasets": [], "nasa_science_categories": [ "Planets & Moons", "Universe" ], "keywords": [ "Ast", "Astrophysics", "Comet", "Edited Feature", "HDTV", "Music", "Swift" ], "recommended_pages": [], "related": [ { "id": 10871, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10871/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "Swift Captures Flyby of Asteroid 2005 YU55", "description": "As asteroid 2005 YU55 swept past Earth in the early morning hours of Wednesday, Nov. 9, telescopes aboard NASA's Swift satellite joined professional and amateur astronomers around the globe in monitoring the fast-moving space rock. The unique ultraviolet data will aid scientists in understanding the asteroid's surface composition.The challenge with 2005 YU55 was its rapid motion across the sky, which was much too fast for Swift to track. Instead, the team trained the spacecraft's optics at two locations along the asteroid's predicted path and let it streak through the field. The first exposure began a few hours after the asteroid's closest approach and fastest sky motion — near 9 p.m. EST on Nov. 8 — but failed to detect it.Six hours later, around 3 a.m. EST on Nov. 9, Swift began an exposure that captured the asteroid sweeping through the Great Square of the constellation Pegasus. The 11th- magnitude rock was then 333,000 miles away and moving at 24,300 mph, about an hour from its closest approach to the Moon. That exposure gave the Swift team more than a streak through the stars. \"A novel feature of Swift is the ability to go into a mode tracking the arrival of every photon captured by the instrument. With that information, we can reconstruct the asteroid as a point source moving through the Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope's field of view,\" said Neil Gehrels, lead scientist for Swift at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.The 27-minute-long image was effectively sliced into short 10-second-long exposures, which then were combined into a movie. This allows scientists to study short-term brightness variations caused by the object's rotation.The result is a movie of 2005 YU55 at ultraviolet wavelengths unobtainable from ground-based telescopes. For planetary scientists, this movie is a treasure trove of data that will help them better understand how this asteroid is put together, information that may help make predictions of its motion more secure for centuries to come. The press release on NASA.gov is here. || ", "release_date": "2011-11-11T09:00:00-05:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:53:28.416278-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 481289, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010800/a010871/10871_Swift_Asteroid_Pass_Still.png", "filename": "10871_Swift_Asteroid_Pass_Still.png", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Asteroid 2005 YU55 whisks through the field of view of Swift's Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope (UVOT) on Nov. 9, just hours after the space rock made its closest approach to Earth. The video plays on a background image from the Digital Sky Survey that shows the same region, which lies within the Great Square asterism of the constellation Pegasus (times UT). Credit: NASA/Swift/Stefan Immler and DSSFor complete transcript, click here.", "width": 1280, "height": 720, "pixels": 921600 } }, { "id": 10747, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10747/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "Swift and Hubble Probe an Asteroid Crash", "description": "Late last year, astronomers noticed that an asteroid named Scheila had unexpectedly brightened and it was sporting short-lived plumes. Data from NASA's Swift satellite and Hubble Space Telescope show that these changes likely occurred after Scheila was struck by a much smaller asteroid. On Dec. 11, 2010, images from the University of Arizona's Catalina Sky Survey, a project of NASA's Near Earth Object Observations Program, revealed the Scheila to be twice as bright as expected and immersed in a faint comet-like glow. Looking through the survey's archived images, astronomers inferred the outburst began between Nov. 11 and Dec. 3. Three days after the outburst was announced, Swift's Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope (UVOT) captured multiple images and a spectrum of the asteroid. Ultraviolet sunlight breaks up the gas molecules surrounding comets; water, for example, is transformed into hydroxyl (OH) and hydrogen (H). But none of the emissions most commonly identified in comets — such as hydroxyl or cyanogen (CN) — show up in the UVOT spectrum. The absence of gas around Scheila led the Swift team to reject scenarios where exposed ice accounted for the activity.Images show the asteroid was flanked in the north by a bright dust plume and in the south by a fainter one. The dual plumes formed as small dust particles excavated by the impact were pushed away from the asteroid by sunlight. Hubble observed the asteroid's fading dust cloud on Dec. 27, 2010, and Jan. 4, 2011.The two teams found the observations were best explained by a collision with a small asteroid impacting Scheila's surface at an angle of less than 30 degrees, leaving a crater 1,000 feet across. Laboratory experiments show a more direct strike probably wouldn't have produced two distinct dust plumes. The researchers estimated the crash ejected more than 660,000 tons of dust—equivalent to nearly twice the mass of the Empire State Building.For the collision animation go to #10759. || ", "release_date": "2011-04-28T09:00:00-04:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:53:49.707181-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 487227, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010700/a010747/SCheilaAnim0868.jpg", "filename": "SCheilaAnim0868.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Short narrated video about the asteroid collision.Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back™ & © 1980 and 1997 Lucasfilm Ltd. All rights reserved. Used under authorization. COURTESY OF LUCASFILM LTD.For complete transcript, click here.", "width": 1280, "height": 720, "pixels": 921600 } } ], "sources": [], "products": [ { "id": 13055, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/13055/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "A Slowly Spinning Comet", "description": "A rotating green comet unexpectedly slowed its spin. || 361_45p_22_12c_16x9.jpg (1657x932) [1.1 MB] || 361_45p_22_12c_16x9_1024x576.jpg (1024x576) [543.9 KB] || 361_45p_22_12c_16x9_thm.png (80x40) [4.9 KB] || 361_45p_22_12c_16x9_searchweb.png (320x180) [91.1 KB] || ", "release_date": "2018-12-03T12:00:00-05:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:46:14.650940-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 398831, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a013000/a013055/361_45p_22_12c_16x9.jpg", "filename": "361_45p_22_12c_16x9.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "A rotating green comet unexpectedly slowed its spin.", "width": 1657, "height": 932, "pixels": 1544324 } } ], "newer_versions": [], "older_versions": [], "alternate_versions": [] }