Comet of a century Tsuchinshan-ATLAS visible this weekend

A comet could be visible among the stars in the coming weeks if it is not too cloudy. This comet, C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS), flies past the Earth and was only discovered last year. According to astronomer Marc van der Sluys from Radboud University in Nijmegen, it is “probably the first and possibly the only time it will fly past the sun”.

The comet will come closest to Earth on Saturday, at a distance of around 70 million kilometers, which is quite close by space standards. It can be easily observed with binoculars from Saturday until the end of November. It faces southwest in the early evening. The best prospects are around October 21. Then the comet will probably also be visible to the naked eye.

The comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS can be observed between October 11 and 15 in the Netherlands. The unique comet will be closer to Earth than the planet Venus and will therefore be visible to the naked eye, Weeronline reports. Space experts are expecting a rare spectacle that could only happen once this century.

The period in which the comet can appear is very short. This only happens after sunset, when the last edge of the sun has disappeared below the horizon. This is the case tonight at 19:00. At first the sky is still too bright to see the comet, but 20 to 30 minutes later it is possible. As the comet is close to the sun from our perspective, it will set quickly afterwards, according to Weeronline.

According to the weather service, the comet has a "long, beautiful tail." In general, comets are a kind of sphere that consists of a mixture of ice crystals, dust, and grit. As soon as a comet comes near the sun, the ice starts to evaporate. This creates a characteristic tail of evaporating ice particles around the comet, according to Weeronline.

In a few weeks, another comet could pass nearby. It bears the designation C/2024 S1 (ATLAS) and was only discovered last month. If this comet survives its flyby of the sun at the end of October, it will be visible to the naked eye from Europe in early November.