It came for the first time in 80,000 years. Newly discovered comet may eclipse stars in sky

Scientists from two observatories in different parts of the world announced at the same time that they had succeeded in detecting a very rare new comet heading towards the Sun for the first time in 80,000 years. Space could appear as a bright star in the night sky in October 2024 and may even outshine the stars as it approaches Earth, he writes.

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A new comet recently discovered by astronomers has been named C/2023 A3 (Zijinshan-ATLAS). The fact is that scientists operating one of the telescopes of the ATLAS system to observe near-Earth objects in South Africa and astronomers from the Chinese Zijinshan Observatory almost simultaneously announced the discovery of a new, very bright comet. It turns out that this comet was observed by American astronomers from Palomar Observatory in December last year, but they did not consider this object a comet.

For the first time in 80,000 years, a new long-period comet is flying to the Sun and will approach the Sun on September 28, 2024, according to astronomers. Now comet C/2023 A3 is between Jupiter and Saturn and is flying towards our star at a speed of 290 thousand km/h. It should approach Earth on October 13 next year.

The comet gets brighter and brighter as it moves towards the inner solar system, and as it approaches Earth in October of the following year, it may appear as a very bright star in the sky and even outshine the stars. its light.

But all this will happen if the comet survives after meeting the Sun. As you know, comets are a stony-core ice block that begins to heat up on closest approach to the Sun. Some of the matter evaporates and a long tail of debris appears. But not all comets survive such an encounter with our star and are completely destroyed, and the remaining matter falls on the Sun. But if comet C/2023 A3 is lucky and has not been more or less damaged after flying around the Sun, then it will be visible to the naked eye from Earth as early as October 2024.

Scientists say the newly discovered comet will be even brighter than the now-famous Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF), which was observed during its pass by Earth in January this year. As already written FocusIt is also a very rare comet that visits the Sun’s circumference every 50,000 years.

So far, scientists have little data on comet C/2023 A3, and they don’t yet know what its true size is. Also, astronomers could not reach a consensus on whether this ice ball would survive after encountering the Sun. Scientists say that when the comet passes near our planet, there is no guarantee that the inhabitants of Earth will be able to enjoy an incredibly bright spectacle in the sky. After all, it may cease to exist.

Moreover Focus He wrote that at the end of January, NASA spacecraft observed a comet flying to us from another star system approaching the Sun.

Later, scientists discovered that this comet has an unusual feature, which, as previously written, became known thanks to new images from the SOHO apparatus. Focus.