Comet C/2023 A3, a very bright comet which has been dazzling Southern Hemisphere skies in the past weeks, reached perihelion on September 27, 2024, was at its closest approach to earth on October 12, 2024. It was discovered in 2023 by the Purple Mountain Observatory in China and ATLAS system in South Africa.
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Comet 1P/Pons-Brooks, a periodic comet with an orbital period of 71 years, reached perihelion on April 21, 2024. It is hypothesized to be the parent body of the Draconids meteor shower in December.
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Comet C/2023 P1 Nishimura, discovered on August 15, 2023 by Hideo Nishimura, will soon become a naked-eye object. It will reach perihelion on September 17, 2023.
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A new comet will become visible late this month. Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF), discovered by the Zwicky Transient Facility on 2 March 2022 reached perihelion on January 12, 2023 and its closest approach to Earth will be on February 1, 2023. The comet is expected to get brighter than magnitude 6 and become a naked-eye object.
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Comet C/2017 K2 PANSTARRS, also known as K2, is making its closest approach to earth July 14, 2022, as it makes its pass through the solar system. It was discovered in May 2017 by Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) in Hawaii. This comet is unique in that it developed a very large coma of about 130,000 km in diameter early on, suggesting that it is very active.
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NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has determined the size of the largest icy comet nucleus ever seen by astronomers. The estimated diameter is approximately 80 miles across, making it larger than the state of Rhode Island. The nucleus is about 50 times larger than found at the heart of most known comets. Its mass is estimated to be a staggering 500 trillion tons, a hundred thousand times greater than the mass of a typical comet found much closer to the Sun.
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C/2021 A1, also known as Comet Leonard, is expected to reach peak size and visibility the weekend of December 10-12 in the pre-dawn sky. It will be at perihelion on January 3, 2022.
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Comet C2020 F3 NEOWISE is shining brightly in the dawn sky throughout the month of July.
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Comet SWAN (C/2020 F8), discovered by Australian amateur astronomer, Michael Mattiazzo using the Solar Wind Anisotropies camera on NASA’s Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), is now a naken eye object visible from the Southern Hemisphere.
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Comet C/2019 Y4 ATLAS, discovered in December 2019 by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) in Mauna Loa in Hawaii is approaching the inner solar system. It is currently observed to be disintegrating.