Lovejoy" grabs Astromers Attention Once Again

Lovejoy, a stunning comet was photographed by excited astronomers on Dec 22 at

Paranal Observatory in Chile's high Atacama Desert. The comet which recentlly survived a "brush" with the sun, is amazing the astronomers again.

  "On the last morning of my shift I tried to try catching it on camera before sunrise," said Gabrein Brammer , the astronomer excited more than any other. "The tail of the comet was easily visible with the naked eye, and the combination of the crescent moon, comet, Milky Way and the laser guide star was nearly as impressive to the naked eye as it appears in the long-exposure photos."

"When it disappeared behind the sun, I think astronomers thought it would not appear again, it would probably burn up," said Daniel Burbank, a NASA astonaut. "But it's probably the most spectacular thing that you can imagine."

"Comet Lovejoy is now headed away from the sun as it travels along its highly eccentric orbit", ESO officials said. "It may return to Earth's night sky in the year 2325, when its orbit brings it back into the inner solar system", they added.

Source: Article by Space.com on Yahoo