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An amateur astronomer has discovered a burnished green comet dive - bombing toward the innersolar system . The emerald - colored aim will slingshot around the Lord’s Day in less than a calendar month , when it could become visible to the naked eye — but anyone with decent backyard appurtenance may be capable to see it now .
The young comet , dubbed SWAN25F , was discovered April 1 by Australian amateur astronomer Michael Mattiazzo , who noticed the comet in photos captured by the SWAN camera on theEuropean Space Agency ’s Solar and Heliospheric Observatory ( SOHO ) spacecraft , agree toSpaceweather.com .
Newly discovered comet SWAN25F will reach its closest point to the sun on May 1, but lots of details about the bright object remain unclear.
Multiple astronomershave since confirmedSWAN25F ’s existence , but the comet has not yet been formally recognize byNASA ’s Minor Planets Center . As a result , there are still large gaps in what we know about this object ’s size of it , origin , aloofness , speed and eye socket . But investigator havestarted to piece togetherits trajectory through the solar system and conceive it will reach perihelion — its closest stop to the sunlight — on May 1 and reach a minimal distance of around 31 million miles ( 50 million kilometers ) from our home star .
News of the likely new cometspread quickly , enabling multiple astrophotographers to capturestriking picturesof the comet just daytime after it was discovered , Live Science ’s sister siteSpace.com report . The green comet has also been snappedby the Virtual Telescope Projectin Manciano , Italy .
One of the best exposure of SWAN25F so far was captured by astrophotographersMichael Jägerand Gerald Rhemann from Weißenkirchen , Austria ( see above ) .
The comet was discovered using images captured by ESA’s SOHO spacecraft.
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ground on that photo , SWAN25F probably has a hindquarters traverse up to 2 degrees across the night sky , Jäger told Live Science . That is quite significant for a comet this far from the Lord’s Day , although the keister is currently quite shadowy , he added .
The comet ’s emerald glow is potential the result of dicarbon — a form of atomic number 6 where a pair of atoms are double - bonded to one another , which has been known togive off a green colouring material in other comet .
This night sky chart by EarthSky.com shows where to look for SWAN25F over the next week, if you have the right equipment to do so.
How to see SWAN25F
Initial observation of SWAN25F reveal that the comet had an apparent magnitude of around +10 , but it has chop-chop brighten to less than +8 . ( manifest order of magnitude is appraise relative to the brightest objects in the night sky , which have a note value of zero . The brighter the comet get , the low its magnitude will get . )
" The comet seem to be brightening quite quickly,“Nick James , the manager of the comets section at the British Astronomical Association , tell Spaceweather.com earlier in the week . " It is too early to predict what the peak brightness will be . We need a few more daylight of observations to confirm the current trend , but it should become at least a binocular object . "
But James ' prediction has already come true , as the comet can now be seen with a decent pair ofstargazing binocularsor adecent scope , EarthSky.com reported . The website has also mapped where the comet can be seen over the next few days .
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The comet will continually lighten as it approaches perihelion , and Jäger predicts that it could peak at around +5 , which would make it seeable to the au naturel eye . However , the comet ’s position puts it close to the horizon in the night sky , which could make it laborious to spot .
As researchers preserve to study SWAN25F , it will become clearer when and where the comet will be most visible .
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