WISE Watches Comet Christensen’s Carbon Emissions

This image shows an expanded view of comet C/2006 W3 (Christensen), observed by the WISE spacecraft on April 20, 2010, as it traveled through the constellation Sagittarius. Comet Christensen was nearly 370 million miles (600 million kilometers) from Earth at the time, and the extent of the dust, about a tenth of a degree across in this image, was about two-thirds the diameter of the Sun. The red contours outline the gas emission that WISE observed in the 4.6 micron infrared wavelength – carbon monoxide (CO) and carbon dioxide (CO2). The strength of the 4.6 micron signal indicates more than half a metric ton per second of CO or CO2 was emitted from this comet during the observations.