A 570 megapixel camera designed to track dark energy accidentally captured comet Lovejoy and the composite photo appeared to be the best photo yet of the comet.

This special camera found at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile uses a targeting system to record images spanning large fields. This camera is the most powerful digital camera on Earth to date.

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This photograph was taken December 27, 2014 when the comet, or comet C/2011 W3, was passing through the southern skies. When the comet was photographed, the icy object was about 51 million miles away from Earth.

The Dark Energy Camera is capable of recording images of objects from as far as eight billion light years away from our planet. At times, it also records objects close to Earth such as comets and asteroids.

Comet Lovejoy takes up a very small part of the sky and there were no plans on following the comet. The camera, however, was scanning that part of the sky at that time.  

Comet Lovejoy possesses an icy nucleus about three miles in diameter and is shrouded by dust and gas covering 400,000 miles from side to side.

Comets are often considered "dirty snowballs" since they usually consist of dry ice, frozen water, small rocks and dust and chemicals such as ammonia. When they approach their host star during their orbits, the increasing heat causes intense activity in the icy body and forms those distinct comet tails.

Comet Lovejoy was first spotted by amateur astronomer Terry Lovejoy in August 2014. What makes this comet unique is the distinct glowing green color from cyanogen and diatomic atom from carbon atoms that become fluorescent from ultraviolet light by the sun.

It also has a distinct blue glow caused by carbon monoxide emanating from its tail.

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