Comet 10P/Tempel 2 is a short-period, Jupiter-family comet with an orbital period of approximately 5.4 years. Captured in this telescopic exposure from July 21, 2026, the comet displays a bright, well-condensed nuclear region surrounded by a characteristic greenish coma, a hue primarily produced by the fluorescence of diatomic carbon and cyanogen gases as volatile ice sublimates under solar ultraviolet radiation. Extending across the nucleus is a thin, linear feature—not a typical radiation-driven dust tail, but a permanent debris trail composed of larger millimeter- to centimeter-sized particles deposited over past perihelion passages. Because Earth crossed the comet’s orbital plane around July 20, this edge-on viewing geometry enhanced the trail's apparent surface brightness, projecting it as a striking, narrow spike while the comet shone at magnitude 13.4 in the constellation Capricornus, roughly 64.4 million kilometers from Earth.
Comet 10P/Tempel 2 is a short-period, Jupiter-family comet with an orbital period of approximately 5.4 years. Captured in this telescopic exposure from July 21, 2026, the comet displays a bright, well-condensed nuclear region surrounded by a characteristic greenish coma, a hue primarily produced by the fluorescence of diatomic carbon and cyanogen gases as volatile ice sublimates under solar ultraviolet radiation. Extending across the nucleus is a thin, linear feature—not a typical radiation-driven dust tail, but a permanent debris trail composed of larger millimeter- to centimeter-sized particles deposited over past perihelion passages. Because Earth crossed the comet’s orbital plane around July 20, this edge-on viewing geometry enhanced the trail's apparent surface brightness, projecting it as a striking, narrow spike while the comet shone at magnitude 13.4 in the constellation Capricornus, roughly 64.4 million kilometers from Earth.