Comet Whips Up Whirling Debris in Close-Up Hubble Telescope View

When Comet 252P/LINEAR flew by Earth in late March, it passed within just 3.3 million miles (5.2 million kilometers) of Earth, or about 14 times the distance between Earth and the moon. The Hubble team created a new time-lapse movie of the comet flyby using the space telescope's imagery. Hubble caught this sequence of photos about two weeks after the comet's closest approach, spotlighting the sunlight reflecting off of the object's jet of ice and dust.