All articles tagged with #comets
Live Science reports that while Mercury is the closest planet, asteroids and comets have approached the Sun much more closely. The Great Southern Comet of 1887 holds the record for the closest surviving object at 446,187 miles from the Sun's center, though hypothetical 'sundiving' comets may have crossed the photosphere.
Four amateur astronomers running a remote 11-inch Schmidt telescope in Chile’s Atacama Desert discovered C/2026 A1 (MAPS), a Kreutz sungrazer, on January 13, 2026—81 days before it would pass near the Sun. Its last inner-solar-system visit likely occurred in the late Roman era (roughly 1,700–1,886 years ago, with a possible sighting in 363 AD). The comet likely disintegrated during its close solar approach on April 4, 2026, but the find demonstrates that dedicated amateurs can catch long-period comets early, well before professional surveys.
Astronomers watching centaur 450P/LONEOS—a body orbiting beyond Jupiter—have observed the onset of comet-like activity, with a developing coma detected by Gemini North. JWST spectroscopy shows carbon dioxide driving the activity and hints of crystalline ice, but no water vapor. The object’s orbit was reshaped by Saturn’s gravity in the past, placing its perihelion just beyond Jupiter, and continued planetary nudges could push it into a Jupiter-family comet, helping link centaurs to active comets; findings are set for Planetary Science Journal (arXiv).
SpaceWeather.com reports an Earth-directed CME from two solar filament eruptions with an ETA around Aug 11–12, potentially triggering auroras near the Perseid meteor shower, while a moderate G2 geomagnetic storm is already in progress as Earth sits in the CME wake. Separately, Comet 220P/McNaught underwent dramatic outbursts, brightening to binocular visibility with observers noting a shock-wave-like debris shell; the page also features aurora imagery and various sky-watching updates.
Astronomers using NASA radar and decades of precise astrometry determined that the near-Earth object 1998 SH2 is actually an active comet with a faint tail. The discovery, supported by observations from the Very Large Telescope and CFHT and published in Nature Astronomy, shows nongravitational forces from outgassing that can alter an object's orbit, improving how we identify hidden comets among near-Earth objects and assess potential impact risks.
New observations of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS from JWST and other telescopes confirm its interstellar origin and reveal chemical fingerprints—a red, cosmic-ray–processed surface; unusually high deuterium abundance and a carbon-12 to carbon-13 ratio far lower than Solar System values—that point to formation in a cold, primitive environment long before our Solar System, making 3I/ATLAS billions of years older than the Sun; its orbit alone cannot determine its age.
Astronomers say the interstellar comet 3I/Atlas could be as old as 12 billion years, potentially the oldest object observed in our solar system. Isotopic data from the JWST and ALMA show an unusually high deuterium content and formation in an extremely cold environment, suggesting an origin outside the solar system; NASA says there’s no evidence of extraterrestrial technology. Future observations with the Rubin Observatory are expected to reveal more interstellar visitors.
A newly spotted long-period comet, C/2025 R3 PANSTARRS, likely from the Oort Cloud, has been visible for weeks in the northern hemisphere and is not expected to return for about 170,000 years. Its fleeting appearance offers a rare glimpse of the solar system’s earliest materials, helping scientists study planetesimals and the building blocks that may have seeded Earth, before gravitational forces potentially eject it from the system.
NASA's Spitzer infrared image captures the Helix nebula, a 700 light-years away planetary nebula—the glowing shell of a sun-like star—with a central white dwarf and a dusty disk likely kicked up by comets that survived the star's death; the finding shows how comets can endure and be redistributed as stars end their lives, and notes that our Sun will form a similar nebula in about five billion years.
Photographers captured a rare time‑lapse of a bright fireball meteor streaking in front of Comet PanSTARRS above Kunětická Hora Castle in the Czech Republic on April 18, reportedly tied to an asteroid explosion over Belarus; PanSTARRS reached perihelion around April 19 and was one of 2026’s most visible comets, making for a striking celestial coincidence.
Live Science reports that comet C/2026 A1 (MAPS), a Kreutz sungrazer, did not survive its close pass with the Sun. Space-based observations show MAPS disintegrating into a cloud of debris and a ghostly tail after reaching perihelion about 100,000 miles from the solar surface, leaving no visible body behind.
Comet C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS) is brightening in April and could become visible to the naked eye in the predawn sky this month, potentially reaching around magnitude 4 as it nears perihelion on April 20 and Earth on April 27. For Northern Hemisphere viewers, it will pass near the Great Square of Pegasus and drift toward Pisces from mid‑April, with a new Moon on April 17 helping dark skies; however visibility is uncertain and depends on the comet’s activity, so binoculars may be needed for a good glimpse.
Live Science’s April 2026 stargazing gear guide suggests the best cameras, binoculars, and telescopes to enjoy this month’s sky events, including the Full Pink Moon, the Lyrid meteor shower, and two bright comets (C/2026 A1 MAPS and C/2025 R3 PanSTARRS). It highlights a dark-sky window around the new moon on April 17 for deep-sky observing and astro-photography, and offers practical gear picks and tips for lunar, planetary, and galaxy observing.
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope tracked comet 41P/Tuttle–Giacobini–Kresák and observed its rotation reverse due to jets of gas and dust, with the spin slowing between 2017 observations and then flipping to a much faster rate (about 14 hours) by December 2017. Scientist David Jewitt explains that uneven jets act like tiny thrusters, reversing the comet’s spin, an unprecedented finding that may signal structural changes or breakup; the results were published in The Astronomical Journal.
Hubble observed C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) break into four fragments just days after perihelion, yielding unusually pristine material to study comet composition and surface physics; observations were conducted Nov 8–20, 2025, when the object was about 250 million miles from Earth.