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English: PIA20053: Swarm of Comets (Artist's Concept)

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA20053

http://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/strange-star-likely-swarmed-by-comets

Using data from NASA's Kepler and Spitzer Space Telescopes, this artist's concept does really show a star behind a shattered comet.

Observations of the star KIC 8462852 by NASA's Kepler and Spitzer space telescopes suggest that its unusual light signals are likely from dusty comet fragments, which blocked the light of the star as they passed in front of it in 2011 and 2013. The comets are thought to be traveling around the star in a very long, eccentric orbit.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Spacecraft operations are based at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company, Littleton, Colorado. Data are archived at the Infrared Science Archive housed at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at Caltech. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

For more information about the Kepler and Spitzer missions, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/kepler and http://spitzer.caltech.edu and http://www.nasa.gov/spitzer.

More information about exoplanets and NASA's planet-finding program is at http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov.
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Source http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA20053.jpg
Author NASA/JPL-Caltech
This image or video was catalogued by Jet Propulsion Laboratory of the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) under Photo ID: PIA20053.

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Public domain This file is in the public domain in the United States because it was solely created by NASA. NASA copyright policy states that "NASA material is not protected by copyright unless noted". (See Template:PD-USGov, NASA copyright policy page or JPL Image Use Policy.)
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24 November 2015

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current 02:41, 25 November 2015 Thumbnail for version as of 02:41, 25 November 20154,534 × 2,550 (233 KB)DrbogdanUser created page with UploadWizard

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