Broken Ice Ball

Comet 73P/Schwassmann–Wachmann appears faintly in the constellation Cygnus in this May 2006 evening view from Turkey. It is a periodic comet which is disintegrating. The comet broke into many fragments in 2006 on its re-entry to the inner Solar System in a reaction triggered by the Sun’s heating the comet as it emerged from the frozen space of the outer Solar System (See the stunning close-up view of the comet fragments by the Hubble Space Telescope). The comet first began to disintegrate in 1995 when it broke into four large pieces. In fact this rather wide-field image of the sky show another price of the comet widely separated. Move the slider on the image to find it.