PHOTOS: Green Comet With Blue Tail Travels by Earth to Form Spectacular Trio of Comets Near Sun

Photo of Comet Lemmon in the night sky above Tunisia's Sahara Desert. Courtesy of Makrem Larnaout and Hafedh Driss

At 3 a.m., the overcast night sky above Tunisia’s Sahara Desert suddenly cleared, and astrophotographers Makrem Larnaout and Hafedh Driss spotted the glowing green Comet Lemmon through their high-powered telescopic cameras.

“The most striking feature [of Comet Lemmon] is the blue ion tail, long, straight, and delicate, stretching for millions of kilometers,” Larnaout told The Epoch Times. “This tail forms from ionized gasses, such as carbon ions, carried away by the solar wind.”