Newly discovered comet visible in night sky this weekend | Tech News

Newly discovered comet visible in night sky this weekend

The ball of rock and ice, whose exact size remains unknown, is named after the Japanese amateur astronomer Hideo Nishimura who first spotted it on August 11.

By:AFP
| Updated on: Sep 07 2023, 10:25 IST
Where do comets come from?
comet Nishimura
1/6 Most comets come from the Kuiper belt, a region beyond the orbit of Neptune comets from this neighborhood usually take 200 years or less to make one orbit around the sun. These are called short-period comets. (NASA)
comet Nishimura
2/6 Comets also come from their other hangout Oort cloud, a far-far-distant cloud, sending some flying into the inner solar system. (Pixabay)
comet Nishimura
3/6 When they are at home in the Oort cloud or Kuiper belt comets are just dull, dark chunks of ice, dust, and rock. In this state, they may not be much different from asteroids. (NASA/MSFC/Aaron Kingery)
image caption
4/6 Sometimes the gravitational pull of a planet can disturb comets in the Kuiper Belt and fly one headlong toward the sun. Notably, Jupiter's strong gravity can turn a long-period comet into a short-period one. (NASA)
comet Nishimura
5/6 The Sun's gravitational pull takes over, shaping the comet's path into an elliptical orbit. The comet travels faster and faster as it nears the sun swings and goes around close to the backside, then heads back to more or less where it came from. (Pixabay)
image caption
6/6 What makes comets look fuzzy and have tails? As comets get closer to the sun and begin to warm up, some of their materials start to boil off. This material forms a cloud around the nucleus. The cloud is called the coma and may stretch over hundreds of thousands of miles across. (NASA)
comet Nishimura
icon View all Images
The comet Nishimura, which has the scientific name C/2023 P1, will pass closest to the Sun on September 17. (AP)

A comet called Nishimura discovered just a month ago could be visible to the naked eye this weekend, offering stargazers a once-in-a-437-year chance to observe the celestial visitor.

The ball of rock and ice, whose exact size remains unknown, is named after the Japanese amateur astronomer Hideo Nishimura who first spotted it on August 11.

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It is rare that comets reach their moment of peak visibility so soon after being discovered, said Nicolas Biver, an astrophysicist at the Paris Observatory.

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"Most are discovered months, even years before they pass closest to the Sun," he told AFP.

The comet only swings by the Sun every 437 years, he said, a long orbital period which sees it spend much of its time in the freezing outer Solar System.

When comets approach the Sun from the vastness of space, the heat causes its ice core to turn into dust and gas, which form a long tail.

The Sun's light reflects off this tail, allowing us to view comets from Earth.

Nishimura, which has the scientific name C/2023 P1, will pass closest to the Sun on September 17.

It will be 33 million kilometres (20 million miles) from the Sun, which is less than a quarter of the distance between the Earth and the Sun, Biver pointed out.

The comet will then pass harmlessly by Earth at a distance of 125 million kilometres.

For stargazers, the comet will be easiest to observe this Saturday and Sunday, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere.

"The best thing to do is look at the sky before sunrise, in a northeastern direction to the left of Venus, in a clear sky, free of pollution," Biver advised.

People with small binoculars will easily be able to enjoy the spectacle. But, if conditions allow, the comet may also be visible by the naked eye.

The comet's tail is greenish, because it contains "more gas than dust," Biver said.

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First Published Date: 07 Sep, 10:25 IST
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