planet

Comet Holmes (left) from the 3.6-meter Canada-France-Hawaii telescope on Mauna Kea showing the coma at 869,900 miles (1.4 million kilometers) in diameter. The white ''star'' near the center of the coma is in fact the dust-shrouded nucleus of the comet.The sun and the planet Saturn are shown at the same scale for comparison

The Nov. 1 photo at left, by an amateur astronomer, shows Comet Holmes' coma consists of concentric shells of dust and a faint tail. The Hubble image at right, made Nov. 4 and enhanced to reveal details, reveals the bow-tie appearance created by twice as much dust existing along the horizontal direction. Credit: NASA,ESA, and H. Weaver (The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory);