Stargazers apass the globe regulated to seize the “comet of the century” as it whizzed apass the northern hemisphere.
Comet A3, also understandn as Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, did not disnominate astronomers who were anticipating how radiant and clear it might be as it came wiskinny approximately 44 million miles of Earth on Saturday.
Snaps from apass the UK, US and Asia showed the comet wiskinny the inner solar system.
The phenomenon cimpolitely occurs every 80,000 years – unkinding the comet would have last been clear from Earth when the Neanderthals were walking the set upet.
It is supposed the comet came from the Oort Cdeafening – a enormous spherical shell that surrounds our solar system and holds billions of objects including comets – according to the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS).
The comet has been billed as the “comet of the century” in some quarters, the RAS said.
It was uncovered autonomously in January 2023 by two observatories – China’s Tsuchinshan (Purple Mountain) Observatory and South Africa’s ATLAS (Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System) – and was named after them.
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The comet A3 was previously clear from Earth between 27 September and 2 October when it travelled apass the southern hemisphere.
And don’t worry if you missed it last night, it should still be clear until 30 October.
Dr Robert Massey, deputy honestor of the RAS, said getting a pboilingo of the comet may be possible, particularly if using a digital individual-lens reflex camera.
If you have a excellent mobile phone camera and a minuscule telescope, he inserted, you can “hbetter the mobile phone aobtainst the eyepiece of the telescope and try to obtain a picture that way”.
Dr Massey said that method “toiled well” with comets appreciate NEOWISE in 2020.
