Comet?  GREEN Comet?  As in Josephine the Plumber's best buddy?

     No!  This comet!! 

 ^{©Prestige Brands                                                         Courtesy Wikipedia Commons}

Of course, in the disambiguation, it's the startlingly green sky object, Comet C2007 N3, I am drawing your attention to.  And it might be best if you look fast, because this comet is going the wrong way around the solar system and will zoom out of sight very soon.  But don't worry if you miss the small smudge that is currently just visible in the sky, here is a huge and lovely picture of this greenest of all comets, called Lulin: 

 ^{Photo courtesy of & copyright:  Richard Richins  (New Mexico State University)}

Lulin has a huge number of interesting details going for it, in addition to its fast anti-planetary motion.  It is giving off cyanogen and diatomic carbon (C₂) which glow green in their excited states.  It has a twisty tail, which actually detached at one point, probably due to a collision with a heavy burst of solar wind.  And yes, it has a dust tail that points in both directions, a sort of an optical illusion in the case of this comet.

The long(ish) story (without nudity)

I think the story of the discovery of this comet will interest readers of this blog post more than just the pretty picture.  It’s a human interest story at its best.

In 1996, at the age of only 7, backyard skygazer Quanzhi Ye saw a comet.  Unfortunately, only days earlier, the same comet had been discovered by American amateurs Alan Hale and Thomas Bopp.  They had each seen the same patchy spot on the sky and spot on the sky and had reported it to the internationally recognized body that records such discoveries, the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams. 

Ye lost the right to name that comet, but he followed his dream to become a scientist.  He was studying meteorology at China's Sun Yat-sen University, and spending spare time doing what he yearned to do most of all - discover a comet on his own. In July 2007, he was studying photographic plates taken several nights before at Lulin Observatory in Taiwan by astronomer Chi Sheng Lin.

At long last, 12 years after he "discovered" his first comet, Ye has cemented his place among the great astronomers by spotting this naked-eye object first. Officially named C2007 N3, it is now called Comet Lulin, after the observatory where the discovery plates were taken. This is probably its first trip around the Sun.  Lulin comes from a part of the Solar System called the Oort Cloud, where bodies left over from the formation of the Solar System hang out until some passing object - another comet, a dark star - whatever - gravitationally knocks them out of their steady state and sends them plummeting toward the inner solar system.

Oops – I promised no more lectures!  Let me add one more picture so you will know where to look for Lulin in the next few days:

  ^{Skymap courtesy Sky & Telescope}

To Quanzhi Ye, I say congratulations for attaining your life's dream so.  Go get your degree in Astronomy!  The world of meteorology is too restrictive for you.  That's only one planet!