Dust jets in comet Hyakutake

Strong dust jets are visible in this image. They trace the ejection of dust particles from the surface of the cometary nucleus. Of particular interest is the fact that there are substantial morphological changes on arcsec scale within the short time interval between these exposures. This is well brought out on a 'differential' frame that has been obtained by subtracting the frame from the later epoch from that of the earlier one.

On this false-colour photo, black areas are where the intensity is strongest in the first image (eso9623b), and red where it is so in the second image (eso9623c). In addition to a well indicated clockwise rotation of approx. 20 deg, there are also apparent changes in the jet structure; for instance, there seems to be more such structures in the first frame than in the second. By careful comparison, these differences can be perceived directly on the combined frames also.