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An astronaut onboard theInternational Space Station(ISS ) has snatch a stunning picture of the tiptop - bright " New Year comet " seemingly shooting behind Earth .
Thecomet , appoint C/2024 G3 ( ATLAS ) , made its closest glide slope to Earth on Tuesday ( Jan. 14 ) when it came within 88 million statute mile ( 142 million kilometers ) of our planet . A day before , it reached perihelion , its closest head to the sun , which made itshine as bright as Venus in the nighttime skyfor several nights and even made it visible in the daytime in some spot .
NASA astronaut Don Pettit photographed comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) from the International Space Station (ISS).
C/2024 G3 was first discovered in April last year as it get down to race toward the sunlight . Since then , uranologist have count its trajectory through thesolar systemand found that it has a highly elliptical , or elongated , orb around our home plate star . It will now head back out toward the Oort Cloud — a reservoir of comet and other icy object scupper near theedge of the solar organization — and will likely not return to the innersolar systemfor at least 160,000 year .
NASAastronaut Don Pettit captured C/2024 G3 " pay us a visit " in a striking photoreleased Jan. 11 on the societal platform X. In the figure of speech , the comet ’s rain cats and dogs tail makes it search like it is moving beyond Earth ’s apparent horizon . The tail is made of gas and dust being muff off the comet by the sunshine , which is also illuminate our planet ’s atmospheric state from its position behind Earth , comparative to the ISS .
" It is wholly awful to see a comet from orbit , " Pettit save .
C/2024 G3 reached perihelion on Jan. 13. It likely takes around 160,000 years to orbit the sun.
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The comet is now decreasing in brightness and will become concentrated to espy over the next few days . However , it could still be potential to pussyfoot a view of the icy target using adecent telescopeor a pair ofstargazing binoculars .
If you fancy your luck of catching a coup d’oeil of the comet before it vanish for millennia , you could get over its position in the night sky atTheSkyLive.com .
Super-bright comets
C/2024 G3 is the latest of several unusually bright comets that have passed tight to Earth in the last few months .
In October last twelvemonth , the " once - in - a - lifetime " comet C/2023 A3 ( Tsuchinshan - ATLAS ) becamevisible to the naked heart across the globefor weeks andgrew a seemingly unsufferable " anti - tail"as it reached its closest breaker point to Earth . This was Tsuchinshan - ATLAS ' first close glide slope for around 80,000 days .
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In April 2024 , we were also visited by theexplosive , gullible " devil comet " 12P / Pons - Brooks , whichunleashed multiple cold - volcanic outburstsas it passed nigh to Earth andbriefly lose its tail to a solar stormas it slingshotted around the sun .
However , C/2024 G3 is probable to be the brightest comet of 2025 , harmonize toEarthSky.com , so we may have to expect a while to see an equally dazzling visitant from the outer solar system .
