January 13th will be a great day, or rather, a great night: in addition to the Wolf-Mars Moon “kiss”, we will also admire the passage of ATLAS C/2024 G3the brightest comet of 2024, which will reach the minimum distance from the Sun, making itself visible with a small telescope. We don’t miss out!
As he explains EarthSkywhat could be the brightest comet of the year is already approaching the Sun. ATLAS C/2024 G3 will in fact pass 13.5 million kilometers from our star, just 0.09 astronomical units.
THE’Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) discovered on April 5, 2024 the comet that now bears its name and which takes about 160,000 years to orbit the Sun. Astronomers believe that it has already passed it at least once, and this could increase its chances of survival to another close encounter.
The comet, in reality, could reach the magnitude -6.9 on January 13, 2025 and such a bright object would be visible even in the daytime sky, but ATLAS C/2024 G3 will be so close to our star that it will be very dangerous to look for it in daylight.
The best views are actually expected in the Southern Hemisphere, after the comet could shine even brighter than Venuswhile we will have to equip ourselves with at least a small telescope.
For us Mediterraneans it is clearly better than for the inhabitants of Central and Northern Europe: we could in fact actually see it, equipped, immediately after perihelion, looking after sunset. And, if ATLAS showed a long tail, we could observe it after dusk even when the head of the tail is below the horizon.
Source: EarthSky
