Today in the history of astronomy, Hubble images a highly anticipated visitor from the outer solar system. The Hubble Space Telescope imaged Comet ISON on May 8, 2013. In the resulting movie created from 43 minutes of observations compressed into five seconds, ISON travels 34,000 miles. Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) In September 2012, Russian astronomers Vitali Nevski and Artyom Novichonok discovered Comet C/2012 S1; as they were using a telescope from the International Scientific Optical Network, the comet was named ISON. Comet ISON was a new visitor from the Oort Cloud , making its first trip to the inner solar system. With the typical build of rock, ice, and dust, ISON sported a nucleus a little more than a half-mile (1 kilometer) across.  Nevski and Novichonok spotted the comet more than a year before its expected closest encounter with the Sun (perihelion) in late November 2013, giving the astronomy community ample time to build an observing campaign.…