Prelude to the Draconid Meteor Shower: Stargazers Capture Amazing Photos of Comet 21P

[Judi Lynn]

By Hanneke Weitering, Space.com Staff Writer | October 8, 2018 07:15am ET

Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner made its closest approach to Earth as the object swooped around the sun in September, and astrophotographers around the world have snapped some incredible photos of the bright-green "dirty snowball" in deep space.

The periodic comet moves around the sun in a highly elliptical orbit that brings the object close to Earth about once every 6.6 years. As it zooms through the solar system, the comet leaves behind a trail of debris. Every October, Earth crosses paths with this trail of debris, and those "comet crumbs" rain down on the planet. This annual event is known as the Draconid meteor shower, and this year, the meteor shower will peak overnight tonight and early Tuesday (Oct. 8 and 9).

Comet 21P reached perihelion — or the point in its orbit at which it is closest to the sun — on Sept. 10 at 2:40 a.m. EDT (0640 GMT), just a few minutes after arriving at its closest approach to Earth. Because comets are icy objects, they become more apparent the closer they get to the sun as they heat up, melting the ice and releasing dust and gas into space. While Comet 21P was brighter than most comets, it was just too faint to spot without using binoculars or telescopes. [Amazing Photos: The Comets 21P/Giacobini-Zinner and 46P/Wirtanen of 2018]

In the time-lapse video above, you can follow along with Comet 21P as it traverses the open star cluster Messier 35 (also known as M35 or NGC 2168). Messier 35 is a cluster of stars located approximately 2,800 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Gemini.

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